LONDON: This morning, at the stroke of a new year, Britain’s presidency of the G8 expired, along with many dreams. Poverty is not history. One in four Angolan infants will die before the age of five; 40 per cent of Africa’s children are still brain-damaged because of malnourishment. White wristbands did not save a continent.

So bring on Bob Geldof, a hero for a season of recycled resolutions. His membership of David Cameron’s commission on global poverty has invited mixed reactions.

Prior to this mission, Geldof wrote an end-of-year review of Live8, the Gleneagles summit and his own great achievements, which was published in the Guardian. In his account, he emerges as a tireless visionary, lacing praise for Blair and Brown with his triumph in seeing off their ‘guff and grandiose schemes’. Critics of his selfless ways are dismissed as carping cynics.

Geldof’s public verdict — ‘On aid, 10 out of 10 on aid, on debt, eight out of ten’ — appalled African experts and British NGOs.

Some of those livid at such crass ill-judgment remain angry at Geldof’s audacity in allegedly grabbing the kudos for their lobbying. Others think the cacophony of Live8 drowned out a political message the white wristband generation was already heeding.

Most, though, also acknowledge some respect for Geldof’s knowledge and methods. In a realm where changing hearts and minds is a sclerotic process, speed merchants are admired, however naive or bumptious. Charities colluded willingly with Geldof. So did Western citizens less eager to face Africa’s complex trauma than to feel good about themselves. And so did government.

Blair’s and Brown’s determination to help Africa was one of the great unsung initiatives of this administration. They did not get all they wanted, but they pressed Italy, Germany and America to the wire of Gleneagles, insistent that they stick to their promises. And yet, at times, both allowed themselves to seem in thrall to the self-styled mastermind who paid them lofty homage while portraying himself as the man who wrung compassion from our leaders’ stony hearts.

Politicians, like charities, played a symbiotic game, seduced by the myth, woven through public life, that nothing happens without the enzyme of fame.

As Britain’s G8 presidency lapses, the argument is split between those who put all the emphasis on the triple axis of aid, trade and debt relief and the farewell-to-alms lobby that thinks nothing can be achieved without an end to corruption. While it is disgraceful that the Africa Commission paid so little heed to enforcing mandatory corporate accountability, no one who has seen a starving mother and child wrapped in the languid embrace of death could ever counsel less can-rattling pending better governance.

Equally, progress is about far more than Western beneficence. China’s demand for oil, copper and nickel gave more income to Africa last year than do-gooders.

Gleneagles, which signalled a good start, assuming its promises are honoured, also reinforced the limits to aid.

There are new goals for 2006. The failure of the Doha trade round must be repaired and education given more priority. As Save the Children urges, every citizen on the planet should have free essential health care. As Oxfam demands, the 35-year-old promise to give 0.7 per cent of income to developing countries must be delivered by 2010, if poverty is really to be made history.

David Cameron, meanwhile, lacks policy on global poverty. He will not find it in the crash between hard capitalism and a maverick rock star. As an aspiring prime minister, he needs the help of experts who could help him marry the needs of Africa with his stated aim of compassionate Conservatism.

But Cameron is not alone in his hope of a quick fix. He is not the only one who has failed to notice that Geldof, expert at hype and spin, has grown more political than the politicians. A nation in thrall to fame offered him a licence that should now be revoked. God help Africa if death, poverty and starvation are only visible to the West if refracted through a prism of borrowed celebrity.

In 2005, a generation primed for action got the politics of delusion. In 2006, it is time to take a lesson from a land whose many plagues rarely include star-worship. Africa, unlike Britain, has long suspected that Bob Geldof owes the continent far more than it owes him.—Dawn/The Observer News Service