The downside of celebrity diplomacy: the neglected complexity of development.

Dieter, Heribert ; Kumar, Rajiv

Celebrities have become important participants in the debate on the future of development. The Irish rock star Paul Hewson, better known as Bono, is not only the front man of the band U2 but has also become the champion of an antipoverty movement with worldwide impact. Bono is supported by US economist Jeffrey Sachs, who has become a global spokesperson for poverty reduction, especially in Africa.

Surprisingly, the recipes being suggested by Bono and Sachs are breath-takingly one-dimensional and akin to the sweeping propositions of the 1960s: give aid to Africa, waive debt, and provide education, and the continent will develop. While these remedies may look seductive, unfortunately the reality is far more complex and demands attention to the specific circumstance of each individual country or subregion. Grand ideas for development are a dangerous recipe and may in fact worsen the situation of the poor.

In this article we address three issues related to the role of celebrities in international relations. First, we chart the rise of prominent celebrity activists in international affairs, in particular their impact on development policies of the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Second, we examine the competence of celebrities to handle development issues and suggest a more nuanced and less paternalistic approach. Third, we consider the legitimacy of celebrity activists and whether these nonelected individuals are well positioned to berate democratically elected governments.

Celebrities in Politics

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, development policy is heavily influenced, in the words of Paul Collier, by development biz and development buzz. (1) Development biz encompasses the aid bureaucracies, aid agencies, and development nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), all of whom make a living out of development. Development buzz, for its part, comes from rock stars, celebrities, and NGOs.

Development buzz has been a door opener for Bono and other celebrities in recent years. In 1999, Bono had an audience with Pope John Paul II. Six years later, Time magazine named Bono, together with Melinda and Bill Gates, as "Persons of the Year." Bono has attended the World Economic Forum in Davos as well as several summits of the Group of 8 (G8). He and fellow activist Bob Geldof gained particular prominence at the Gleneagles G8 summit of 2005 and the Heiligendamm G8 summit of 2007. At Gleneagles, Bono had one-on-one meetings with George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroder, and Paul Martin and also met Jacques Chirac after the summit. (2) At Heiligendamm, Bono again claimed center stage, holding meetings with various leading politicians. His supporters even set up camp in Berlin months before the event.

The attention celebrity diplomats received surrounding Heiligendamm was overwhelming. For example, for its May 2007 edition, Vanity Fair had a German singer, Herbert Gronemeyer, as its guest editor, and dozens of celebrities expressed their concern about poverty and hunger. Concurrently Bob Geldof was guest editor of an issue of the German tabloid Bild-Zeitung that laced pleas for greater development assistance with pictures of dying children and people afflicted with AIDS. (3)

Efficient public relations work has made celebrities core players who had better be consulted. Politicians today can hardly avoid meetings with Bono. When Stephen Harper, Canadian prime minister, said he was too busy for a meeting with Bono during the Heiligendamm summit, the rock star did not take no for an answer. He growled that Harper had blocked progress on aid for Africa, and the intimidated prime minister promised to find time for a meeting. (4)

Celebrity diplomacy extends well beyond G8 meetings and development issues, of course. George Clooney pronounces on Darfur. Robert Red-ford pronounces on Iraq. Not everyone is impressed. For example, Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times castigates Bono as "a grandstanding poseur who has intimidated blameless bankers and politicians into taking him seriously by sheer force of celebrity." (5) In any case, the phenomenon of celebrity activism in international affairs has become too serious to be ignored.

Celebrity Competence?

One of the severe downsides to celebrity interventions in development politics is oversimplification of issues. The "analysis" rests in the language of rock songs, Hollywood, and Ronald Reagan. The world is painted in black and white and good is pitted against evil. Nuance is inevitably lost. Historic experience is disregarded. Celebrities provide their followers with easily understood, morally couched messages, but the process of development is much more complex. As Collier notes, "Inevitably, development buzz has to keep its message simple, driven by the need for slogans, images, and anger. Unfortunately, although the plight of the bottom billion lends itself to simple moralizing, the answers do not." (6)

Therefore, Bono and his fellow celebrity activists might in fact be doing major harm to the peoples of Africa. Their well-meaning interventions probably prolong the tragedy instead of ending it. Rather than raising the ability of Africans to help themselves, celebrity campaigns may well lead the continent into ever deeper trouble. More aid may paralyze the initiative of individuals rather than empowering them. It may even produce a beggar's mentality, where the poor expect the solution to problems from foreign donors rather than from one's own society. (7)

To be sure, Bono does not claim to have expertise in development policy. He is supported by powerful academic economists, in particular Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University. In fact, Bono and Sachs have become something of a double act, with the professor providing the intellectual message and the rock star bringing it to large audiences. Yet what should one make of Sachs's credentials, especially after his prescriptions of disastrous "shock therapy" for Russia in the transition from communism? Jagdish Bhagwati, also at Columbia, has characterized Sachs's intervention in Russia as the biggest debacle of economic policy advice ever. (8)

Now, Sachs advocates another grand strategy, arguing that a Big Push of aid would solve Africa's problems. He estimates that net worldwide foreign aid should reach $195 billion per year in 2015, plus an undisclosed sum for climate change projects. (9) Once again, Sachs advocates the big project and ignores the positive experience that many Asian countries have had with piecemeal reform. His new shock therapy is driven by the old paternalistic attitude that aspires to rescue the world. (10) Sachs appears to be ignoring, willingly or not, that his Big Push is similar to early development policies of the 1950s and 1960s and--to a degree--to the central planning that ruined the countries of Eastern Europe and the USSR.

Indeed, why would more aid for Africa--one of the core celebrity urgings, reinforced by Sachs--have positive effects on development when the experience with aid to date has been by and large negative? One of the arguments can be that aid in the past has not achieved the scale required to take the population across the income threshold beyond which the recipients can be on a self-propelled path out of poverty. However, even countries such as Tanzania that did enjoy larger amounts of aid do not provide support for this claim. To continue to ask for more aid flows, despite the failures that are so visible to all who want to see, is surely pushing more good money after bad.

In any case, any further aid must be conditional on improved governance. In the past, development aid frequently supported governments with the worst governance record. Inappropriate governance has clearly been a major obstacle to development in Africa, and improvement of development performance requires new incentive structures that reward success instead of failure. As a recent comprehensive investigation by the Canadian senate concludes, "By far the biggest obstacle to achieving growth and stability in sub-Saharan Africa has been poor government and poor leadership within Africa itself." (11)

The basic components of good governance are well established. The most important ingredients include effective provision of essential public goods and services; law and order; the right to private property; sovereign rights of a country over its mineral and other natural resources; and enforcement of contracts. Yet these elements are missing in many African countries. Markets and private enterprise cannot work in such an institutional vacuum.

Of course, good governance is no panacea for Africa. The intention is not to replace the old aid ideology with yet another simplistic development strategy for Africa. However, providing fresh money, as demanded by celebrity diplomats, ought to be accompanied by proposing clear and plausible strategies for improving governance and by putting in place the necessary institutions and nurturing them to the extent required. Ideally, this improvement of governance should be fostered not in individual states, but in groupings of neighboring countries.

Celebrity Legitimacy?

Andrew Cooper, in his innovative monograph on celebrity diplomacy, suggests that, unlike other celebrities, Bono has been immunized against criticism. "Because of his imprint as a moral entrepreneur," Cooper argues, "Bono escapes most of the criticism for opportunism and superficial fluff heaped on other celebrities who have taken on a diplomatic profile," (12) Yet there is a case to question the legitimacy of celebrities to speak with authority on development and other international issues.

Celebrities lack a mandate to become active in global politics. People like to listen to the music of Bono and Geldof, but these stars are not democratically elected to public office. Charisma as well as their wallets may give them power, but in most cases celebrities are self-appointed. Their legitimacy is derived from their personal credibility. Thus, one should look more closely at their activities off the campaign trail.

For example, there appears to be a contradiction between Bono's public rhetoric on development and his hard-edged private commercial practices. (13) Bono is a managing director and cofounder of Elevation Partners, which claims to have $1.9 billion in committed capital. (14) In 2006, Elevation Partners became a significant minority shareholder in Forbes Media. (15) Forbes portrays itself as the site for "The World's Business Leaders" and is probably the most conservative publisher in business news. (16)

Bono has also made quite a lot of money from his core business activity. The last tour of U2 consisted of 131 concerts, which resulted in gross ticket receipts of $389 million, the second most successful tour of any rock band in history. The album linked to the tour sold 9 million copies. (17) In contrast to most other bands, U2 owns all rights and sells its merchandise at its concerts. (18)

Of course, Bono can do with his money whatever he likes, but some of his key commercial decisions would appear to sit uncomfortably next to his antipoverty politics. Whereas Bono has chastised politicians for failing adequately to fund antipoverty efforts in Africa, U2 has carefully optimized its own tax bill. In 2006, the band moved part of its corporate base from Ireland to the Netherlands after the Irish government had announced the suspension of tax exemptions that had enabled U2 to collect their songwriting royalties tax-free. (19) Not surprisingly, this shift to the Netherlands, where royalty income remains untaxed, angered quite a few in Bono's native Ireland. (20)

Questions can also be raised concerning the organization of Debt, AIDS, Trade Africa (DATA), the advocacy association cofounded by Bono in 2002. The board of directors of DATA is composed of two women and six men, all of them coming, as Cooper puts it, "from the Anglo-sphere." (21) No board member comes from Africa, and only one of the five DATA offices is located in Africa. Bono does not disclose whether he has donated any of his own funds to the organization. (22)

So, are celebrity diplomats active for the people of Africa or for their own benefit? Cooper argues that "it would be wrong to suggest that the celebrity diplomats from the Anglo-sphere are 'tragedy voyeurs.'" (23) Perhaps, but celebrity diplomats may still use Africa to promote their own agenda, which may or may not be benign. Some citizens actively oppose Bono's work. For example, the so-called GONE project claims to be the "campaign to make Bono history." (24)

Conclusion

We have indicated in this discussion that celebrities are ill-equipped to solve Africa's problems. Rock bands and film stars may help raise awareness of Africa's difficulties, but their campaigns may be counterproductive and could result in an underutilization of African potentials. This is not to advocate a wholesale retreat of outside parties from development efforts in Africa. However, donors have to accept the complexities of development and address them honestly and diligently. The improvement of governance in Africa has to be a core goal, and ownership of development strategies must become much more than a slogan. The alternative would be additional proliferation of celebrity diplomats and a further trivialization of development challenges, the consequences of which are simply too negative to contemplate.

Notes

Heribert Dieter is a senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin. Rajiv Kumar is director of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi.

(1.) Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 4.

(2.) Andrew Cooper, Celebrity Diplomacy (Boulder: Paradigm, 2008), p. 37.

(3.) Bild-Zeitung, 31 May 2007.

(4.) Gideon Rachman, "The Aid Crusade and Bono's Brigade," Financial Times, 30 October 2007, p. 9.

(5.) Gideon Rachman, "Why I Hate Bono," Financial Times, 10 September 2007, p. 16.

(6.) Collier, The Bottom Billion, p. 4.

(7.) Bartholomaus Grill, "Schneepfluge fur Guinea. Warum die Entwicklungshilfe gescheitert ist und was wir daraus lernen konnen," Internationale Politik 12 (2007), p. 14.

(8.) Die Zeit, 8 November 2007, p. 45.

(9.) Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty (London: Penguin, 2005), p. 301.

(10.) Grill, "Schneepfluge fur Guinea," p. 14.

(11.) Canadian Senate, "Overcoming 40 Years of Failure," 2007. Available online at www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/fore-e/rep-e/repafrifeb07-e .pdf, p. vii.

(12.) Cooper, Celebrity Diplomacy, p. 3

(13.) Ibid., p. 126.

(14.) See www.elevation.com/EP_IT.asp?id=112.

(15.) New York Times, 7 August 2006, p. Cl. According to press reports, the stake in Forbes cost Elevation Partners US$250 million (Sunday Telegraph, 19 November 2006, p. 25).

(16.) See www.forbes.com.

(17.) Richard Tomlinson and Fergal O'Brian, "Bono INC," Bloomberg Markets, March 2007, p. 68.

(18.) National Post, 5 February 2007, p. EN5.

(19.) Tomlinson and O'Brian, "Bono INC," p. 70; Sunday Telegraph, 19 November 2006, p. 25.

(20.) Irish Independent, 18 March 2007.

(21.) See DATA's website at www.data.org/about/bod.html#.

(22.) Tomlinson and O'Brian, "Bono INC," p. 71.

(23.) Cooper, Celebrity Diplomacy, p. 99.

(24.) Website at www.eliminatebono.com/index.html.