What drew people to the Live 8 concerts by the millions--in person, on-line, and on television--was great music by superstars, not extreme poverty in Africa. The organizers’ strategy of bait and switch made good sense—first get the audience into the tent, then recruit them to your cause. But how long will the audience remain “activated” and engaged in the cause? Twenty years ago, Live Aid organizers needed people to remain energized just long enough to write a check—and $200 million was quickly raised for famine relief in Ethiopia. This time, the goal is still money—but from governments, not individuals. A sustained follow-up by advocates will be essential after this week’s G8 Summit to transform the promises of political leaders into realities. Bush’s new commitments on Africa, announced last week, won’t mean anything unless he fights hard to secure the funds from Congress. But do the advocates have a post-G8 game plan? That’s not clear.
It’s also not clear whether Live 8’s stated goal to “Make Poverty History” reached the crucial “threshold of credibility” with the general public and the news media, rendering it a viable objective for a campaign. Skepticism about the realism of the goal was widespread in U.S. media accounts of Live 8 this past weekend, even among writers sympathetic to the cause.
Jeffrey Sachs' step-wise approach of going for highly visible, “quick wins” on limited but more readily achievable goals strikes me as a smarter strategy than Live 8’s go-for-broke effort to end poverty now. Live 8 organizers could have concentrated on raising money from millions of people around the world to provide millions of children in malaria-endemic regions of Africa with insecticide-treated bed nets. (“Your $5 donation buys one bed net to protect one African child from deadly malaria”) The sense of empowerment that flows from helping one child could engender a deeper bond with Africa than is likely to result from e-mailing one’s name from a cell phone to sign an anti-poverty petition. And, a deeper connection to Africa could yield an army of recruits who remain energized over the longer term to pressure governments.
If advocates prove successful this week in winning the Battle of Gleneagles, the question will remain, what is their long-term strategy for winning the War Against Extreme Poverty? What’s needed is, at a minimum, a 5-year campaign, starting with Live 8, not ending with it. And a key element of that sustained effort must be to re-brand Africa as representing “new hope” instead of “no hope.” We’re not there yet.