Measuring Success and Promises Kept

May 15th, 2006 7:00 PM UTC
By Shannon

Four years ago, Bono and DATA traveled to
Sub-Saharan Africa with journalists and politicians, including then-U.S.
Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil, to draw the world’s attention to the emergency
of AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa — and
the numerous ways in which that emergency could be tackled. We focused on the crisis in Africa,
but also on the opportunities to solve it.

Click here to read the full overview of the trip.  

We are now making a public return trip to
Sub-Saharan Africa with ONE.org to see what progress has been made since that
well-recorded visit in 2002 and what remains to be done in the fight against
extreme poverty, the kind that every day ends the lives and cripples the
futures of millions of men, women and children.

Over the last few years, culminating in last
year’s G8 Summit, the world’s wealthier nations have made historic aid and debt
cancellation promises to Africa. But we must
keep up the pressure to ensure follow-through. Even as we leave for Africa, some governments are cutting back on proposed
increases. For example, just last week leaders in the U.S. House of
Representative cut President Bush’s appropriations request by nearly $2.5
billion. A cut of that size, if sustained, would result not just in broken
promises, but in lives lost and futures derailed. We will be visiting the
clinics and schools where western aid has been effectively used, and where its
retraction or absence will be bitterly felt.

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