Bob Geldof

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Bob Geldof is a musician, activist and entrepreneur.

Bob has been an active campaigner on poverty in Africa for over 20 years, starting with organising Band Aid and the Live Aid global concerts in the 1980s. Since then he’s worked tirelessly on anti-poverty campaigns, including the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign, as well as co-founding DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), which merged with ONE in 2008. Bob sat on the Commission for Africa in 2005 and is a member of the Africa Progress Panel with other leaders and experts including Kofi Anan, Muhummed Yunus and Graça Machel.

Bob organised Live8 in 2005. This series of ten concerts, with an estimated global audience of 3 billion, were timed to put pressure on G8 leaders, who went on to make many significant poverty alleviation pledges at the Gleneagles G8 summit. Today Bob works closely with ONE, lobbying leaders to keep these promises. He has co-edited newspaper editions on behalf of the ONE Campaign, from La Stampa in 2009 around the 35th G8 summit to The Globe and Mail in 2010. Bob also spoke on behalf of ONE at the summit on the Millennium Development Goals in September 2010.

Bob has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on several occasions and has received many awards for his Africa work, including an honorary knighthood in 1986.