Bono Blogs Against Malaria



(image via theage)

Just read about The Bono Blog on FT. Who knew? No one name drops quite like Bono, who has become something of a jet-setting ambassador of -- what? Compassionate Chic? The First World helping the Third? Whatever the case, Bono has leveraged his cool -- Bill Clinton-like -- into something so much more than the opaque environmentalism au courante in Hollywood. It is an interesting turn, this, for a man once self-described as a "poet." Poets are, by and large, politically impotent -- though Romantic -- actors in the global theater. Bono is not. From FT:

"Due to gridlock in Manhattan and the markets yesterday, our ONE campaign meeting with Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin morphed into a phone call. Amongst other things, we discussed malaria, that preventable treatable disease that means 2,200 kids in Africa die each day because of a mosquito bite. There’s a lot of excitement at the UN today because it looks like we are finally going to squash those bugs, metaphorically speaking. Senators Obama and McCain both spoke at CGI earlier to commit to this if they get elected. I went to the Malaria No More event where Bill Gates and Gordon Brown, Bob Zoellick, Global Fund chair Rajat Gupta and a host of developing world presidents lead by President Kikwete of Tanzania (who also leads the African Union) declared war on the bloodsucking anopheles mosquitoes in countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda, where dramatic scale up of bed nets has cut deaths by more than half. WOW, seriously WOW. The room committed an extra $3bn to the drive of 'no more malarial deaths by 2015.' Hosting the event are Ray Chambers and Peter Chernin who have pulled the private sector in - their money and their know-how. It’s a new model.

"I enjoyed an exchange with three great African presidents, President Kikwete of Tanzania, President Kagame of Rwanda and President Kufour of Ghana .."

More here.