Pick Your Issue, Pick Your Country: Western Celebrities and the New Scramble for Africa

In his recent and very influential book, The Bottom Billion (Oxford, 2007), Oxford economist Paul Collier speaks of two groups of people who are very involved in helping the poor of the world but who, nevertheless, fail to understand what needs to be done in order to help the poor get out of poverty. He describes the first group as "development biz." This group is made up of aid agencies and the companies these aid agencies patronize. The "development biz" has made a business out of helping the poor. Thus, instead of focusing on radical policies that may better help the poor, they focus on aid. The second group Collier describes as "development buzz." This group is made up of rock stars, celebrities and NGOs. This group has helped put Africa on world development agenda but Collier describes the group as charactered by "a headless heart," that is, they want to help but they are not aware of how to effectively do so. Today's blog-spot deals with this second group, with special attention to celebrities. Western celebrities are currently mounting a new scramble for Africa as each of them pick their issue and then pick the country they want to be involved in (or, perhaps, the other way around). Click on this link for an interesting interactive map on how this is happening.