Bono is blogging

Did you know that Bono is keeping a daily blog. Sheer poetry....

Bono is attending high-level meetings at the Millennium Goals Development Conference in NYC. The conference is convened by the United Nations. The conference is part of the ongoing global conversation to end poverty by 2015.

Here are some of Bono's comments thus far.

• As the sun arcs over the Manhattan skyline and the markets start dancing nervously out of time, the lyrics I’ve been scribbling over breakfast have been removed and replaced by spreadsheets with large numbers in tiny font as we wrestle with EU budgets in advance of meetings later today with Presidents Sarkozy and Barroso.  It’s hard to fight for increases in aid at times like this - but that’s what I’m here for this week… stick with me, while myself and others make our case that now is precisely the time to invest in the world’s poor.  I’ll keep you posted.
  
• I hate talking about aid and, in my experience, so do Africans – they’re entrepreneurial by nature and want our trade more than our aid. But they need seed capital and some start-up infrastructure to get going. Needless to say, it’s hard to do business if you’re dead or dying. As things stand, aid when well spent is a critical source of investment.
  
• Tough meeting with the Président de la République of France. He’s a tough guy. We like tough guys because they get straight down to business. They don’t waste their time or yours.  The French budget is out this Friday and in it we will see if France intends continuing its leadership role on the continent of Africa.  In the last few years, French aid has been falling.
  
• I’m not talking about the aid of the 20th century by the way. For too many
  years, much aid was wasted and ended up redecorating presidential palaces
  instead of building hospitals. That was our corruption as well as theirs.
  Handing over billions of dollars to a corrupt dictator because he isn’t a
  Commie, knowing he will use it to suppress discontent and swell personal bank
  accounts - that makes you complicit. But, this is a new century, and a new
  understanding of aid and partnership means that we are starting to see different
  results.
  
• The ONE campaign has two and half million members, who urge us to make the case for increased aid as a key plank in America’s new foreign policy. ONE T-shirts have been turning up in town hall meetings for 18 months now, haranguing, hassling, but ultimately endearing themselves to all the presidential campaigns. They want the world to see what America has to offer the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day - practically speaking: medicine, new seed varieties, technology, know-how; policy speaking: what should America do more of? what should America do less of?

Thanks to Beth for the initial link.