Learning from Live 8 and Band-Aid

You might be aware that today marks the fifth anniversary of Live 8 and the 25th anniversary of Live Aid.  Tony Blair has an op-ed in The Sun about the former and Bob Geldof has a lengthy piece in the same newspaper about the latter.  But after 25 years of celebrity activism and feel-good politicians wanting all of us to feel better about the many millions we've given in aid money to help the people of Ethiopia, the average Ethiopian isn't much better off.  That is a disgrace and a scandal. 

Take this 25th anniversary of Band-Aid (or, if you prefer, the 5th anniversary of Live8, the episode where we failed to learn from the past and proceeded to repeat its mistakes) and read this post about how there is still no effective means of appraising the projects that we continue to fund, in spite of many good efforts to do so.  This is a tragic reminder of the failures of the aid industry and a desperate plea to evaluate more effective ways of helping people in the world's poorest countries.