Keyword: bono

The Death of International Development

Picture: The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation and Bono Jason Hickel - International development is in serious crisis. Charities are worried about the fact that public support for development is waning – that people just don’t seem to ‘buy it’ any more. According to a recent report by the development umbrella group Bond, ‘Efforts to eradicate poverty appear to many members of the public to have failed, and scepticism about the effectiveness of aid and global development initiatives has risen.’ People are less and less likely...

Engaging Power: Why Bono's Doing it Wrong

Picture: George Bush and Bono courtesy PD-USGOV-POTUS/Wikimedia Commons. Harry Browne - Tim Adams' in-depth interview with Bono, published in last Sunday’s Observer, gave the celebrity activist an opportunity to respond to his left-wing critics. Unfortunately that criticism was misrepresented, and so his rebuttals hit only straw. The interview suggested that those who criticise Bono do so largely because, as Adams put it in the comments below, ‘Bono has tried to work on these issues [of poverty, aid and development] with people Browne and [George] Monbiot believe...