Why Philanthropy Alone Will Not Solve the Problems of Africa

After more than 20 years of organizing high-visibility events to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to fight famine and poverty in Africa, the rock musician Bob Geldof has learned that philanthropy alone is not enough.

“After 20 years, I arrived at the point where charity can only do so much,” said Mr. Geldof in speech Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in San Diego.

What makes the real difference, he said, is policy changes at the highest levels of government, coupled with charitable efforts that attract publicity to those changes, so that governments “won’t go back on their word,” he said.

Mr. Geldof said he arrived at that conclusion after organizing Live Aid, a rock concert in 1985 that raised $200-million, and traveling to Africa, where he encountered suffering on a scale that “no human should ever have to see.”

After Live Aid, he said he studied the problems of Africa with foreign-policy experts. He joined an effort to persuade leaders of the world’s most developed nations to increase their aid to Africa and forgive debts of the countries on that continent.

Tony Blair, then Prime Minister of Britain, agreed to take the issue to the annual G-8 Summit of the United States and seven other industrialized nations that discuss issues of global concern. Meanwhile, Mr. Geldof, Bono, and other musicians and celebrities worked to keep the issue alive in the news media and through charitable efforts. The goal: raising $50-billion annually, a far more ambitious project than the $200-million raised by Live Aid.

A little appreciated outcome of that work is that “America has quadrupled its aid to Africa under Bush’s watch,” he said.

While other countries have failed to substantially increase their aid, Mr. Geldof said, progress is being made. Some 29 million more African children are in school because of debt cancellation and, for the first time in generations, 350 million people are free of “debt slavery,” in which they are born into debt they have no chance of repaying only to die in even greater debt.

“It is changing,” he said. “Give them a chance.”