Gates Bono unveil 'DATA Agenda' for Africa

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Gates Bono unveil ’DATA Agenda’ for Africa

BONO04 FEBRUARY 2002 1 MIN READ

Gates, Bono, unveil 'DATA Agenda' for Africa

Bill Gates and Bono revealed details of the DATA agenda for Africa at theWorld Economic Forum on Saturday.

04 Feb 2002

Bill Gates and Bono revealed details of the DATA agenda for Africa at theWorld Economic Forum on Saturday.

'We have an agenda,' Bono told a news conference, reported on CNN.Com.'Which we're calling the 'DATA Agenda': 'Debt, AIDS and trade for Africa, inreturn for democracy, accountability and transparency in Africa.

'It's a deal, and it's a tough deal, but we think if we follow that through,by this summer's G-8 we can get governments to agree on a kind of MarshallPlan for Africa.

'It's a good analogy I think, particularly post-September the 11th. ... TheUnited States invested in Europe after the Second World War as a bulwarkagainst Sovietism. And it had debt cancellation as part of it, and trade,etc.

'At the moment,' he continued, 'Africa is in the same kind of vulnerableposition that Europe was - to other extremists and ideologies. And I thinkit would be very smart for the West to invest in preventing the fires ratherthan putting them out, which is a lot more expensive.'

For years, the singer has been an outspoken advocate for third-world debtrelief.

Gates and his wife, Melinda, have created a $24 billion fund whose mainpurpose is to bridge the disparity in health care between poor and richcountries. Bono cited the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as a source offunding for DATA.

Gates warned, however, that private charitable contributions alone will notbe enough to achieve the DATA goals; governments also must play a part.

'Private philanthropy is no substitute for governmental action here,' Gatessaid. 'The scale of the problem and the need to engage,government-to-government, is just way too great for this to be done, evenwith the kind of increase we'll see in personal philanthropy. And we've saidto governments, you know, 'If you step up and increase, we'll step up andincrease as well,'' Gates said.

'If government is pulling back on this stuff, then the AIDS epidemicabsolutely will not be stopped and the whole view of the rich world and howthey've behaved to the world at large I think will be sort of irredeemable,'Gates said.

Bono said he and his colleagues have been petitioning world leaders toaddress the DATA agenda, with at least one major success.

'We just saw [Canadian] Prime Minister [Jean] Chretien yesterday, whoconfirmed that at the next G-8, Africa will be center-stage.'

The G-8, or Group of Eight, includes the world's top industrializeddemocracies -- the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany,Italy, Japan -- and Russia.

Bono said Chretien also told him that Canada would be the first country toopen trade to all the poorest countries of Africa.

'[There's] a certain distrust of aid and the way it's been spent in thepast,' Bono said. '... We have to do a lot to change the public's mind. Iknow Americans are very generous in spirit and I know that if they thinkthey can help and if they think the money can be used well, they will puttheir hands in their pockets.'

Gates said, 'It's my view that if people lived next to the 2 billion peoplein the world who are having to deal with the worst conditions, we wouldn'tneed people like ourselves speaking out on this topic. People would seethose neighborhoods. They'd think about those people, and on a purehumanitarian basis -- the vaccination problems, the AIDS epidemics problemwould get the resources that they need.

'Because people -- the rich world and the poor world -- are so separated,the awareness of the crisis in AIDS and the very effective interventionsthat can take place is very, very low.

'The time is really now to change these things. That's true from the pointof view of the relationship between the rich world and the poor world, it'strue from a security point of view, an economic point of view. ... We'rehopeful that the U.S. and other governments will see this as a turningpoint,' Gates said.

Bono said, 'What's going on is actually a crisis of the order neverexperienced before. I think HIV-AIDS has set back development to the pointwhere we're living with statistics that we should not be living with.Twenty-five million Africans are HIV-positive and they will leave behind 40million AIDS orphans by the end of the decade. This is really unacceptable.It's an everyday holocaust.'

More at www.cnn.com