By Salama A Salama It had become something of a custom for rich nations to stage musical events on behalf of sufferers of crises and natural disasters. Last week saw the latest of these events, Live 8, where 10 concerts were staged in different venues around the world. The organisers of the event wanted to draw the world's attention to the poverty that claims lives around the globe. Nearly eight million people are said to die of hunger every year in Africa alone. The concerts preceded the Gleneagles G8 summit during which the world's richest countries are making a point of discussing global poverty. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair took the lead, campaigning for debts to the world's poorest nations to be cancelled and targeting $25 billion to be raised for poverty alleviation programmes in Africa. There is no denying the nobility of such a quest. In a world in which the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer the contribution of just 0.07 per cent of the GDP of the wealthiest nations is deemed enough to improve the lives of 600 million Africans. The Live 8 concerts drew attention to a problem that has been for too long ignored though what is needed is more than attention. Promises of aid have been made in the past and then forgotten. The recent tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia is a case in point with many countries promising aid for the victims much of which has yet to materialise. Public awareness is a good thing as long as it leads to a strengthening of political will. Without political will aid is likely to be either too slow, two little or bound up with restrictions. Rich governments have already pointed out that they want to help Africa but say corruption must be eliminated first, or economies restructured, or development priorities reordered. Africans may not be in a position to meet such demands. Rich countries don't seem to accept that they are at least partly responsible for the corruption in Africa. Yet G8 members have often backed leaders known to be corrupt and supported governments with appalling human rights records. Aid regularly comes with political conditions, while Europe and the US continue to restrict African exports of agricultural products so as to protect their own farmers. Important as it is to minimise the debt burden faced by the world's poorest countries, it is also important for the world's wealthy to stop fuelling Africa's internal disputes. The supply of weapons to war-torn zones must cease, and those countries -- notably Israel and several Eastern European states, known to be supplying arms, experts and mercenaries to warring parties in Africa -- must be pressured to halt such trade. The tribal conflicts in Darfour and in Southern Sudan are fuelled by non-Africans whose activities cause mayhem on a scale no foreign assistance can reverse. Singing and dancing may bring pleasure to the public, charity concerts may salve guilty consciences and the world is definitely in need of some cheering up. But once the lights are out and the musicians have gone home nothing much will have changed. Africans are in trouble and they need more than concerts to address their problems. The governments of rich countries may be willing to make promises but when it comes to keeping them they quickly complain that their taxpayers have been pushed to the limits. Those taxpayers are the same people who willingly attended and cheered the singers at Live 8.
