I've been chewing on the off-hand question of whether Bono has too much power since posting yesterday. Then today, I came across a little more discussion about Bono's address to the TED conference in Arusha and then via PSD Blog I read Andrew Rugasira's Financial Times op-ed headlined "Please Bono, Stop Heckling and Just Listen."

Rugasira attacks Bono for what he calls the Irish rock star's "expletive laden" interruptions of foreign aid critic Andrew Mwenda before launching into a fairly standard-issue critique of foreign aid. Mwenda and Rugasira both believe that aid causes more problems than it solves. Rugasira writes:

Giving aid to poor countries and working exclusively through their government agencies makes accountability worse rather than better. It makes the governments more accountable to foreign donors than to their own people. Also, the notion that the donor-recipient relationship is a collaborative partnership is false. It is false because power and resources determine negotiating edge, especially when one party is giving the money and the other receiving.

As with other aid skeptics, I confess to finding something compelling about the alternatives Rugasira lists. He believes that trade is the solution. He points out that "Africa’s trade with the rest of the world increased by 4% this would translate into £160 billion pounds per annum equal to six times the current aid flows per annum." There is something enormously satisfying about this simple formulation. Rugasira says Bono and Bob Geldof don't bother pushing for more open trading opportunities because "this less glamorous and quiet route would prove less attractive" to the "media hungry celebrities."

I don't believe that. But I come away from this piece with two conclusions. First, I don't believe that the effects of aid are as poisonous as Rugasira asserts. I do think that aid has done a lot of harm in its time, but I believe that has been and will still be a lot of good done with aid dollars. I don't find Rugsira's suggestion to open markets incompatible with the demands of aid-celebrities like Bono for more and deeper commitments of foreign assistance. Indeed, the ideal is still possible: aid can help a country turn its attention to building its own capabilities while donor dollars stand in the gap on health and infrastructure matters, for instance.

Second, I have more concerns about the fact that I'm discussing an open dialogue between a rock star and the CEO of an African coffee company than about the content, in some ways. Where are the real leaders on this? Why aren't African leaders better spokespeople than their businessmen or our pop icons? Why aren't passionate US politicians seeing the power of any kind of pro-African message (trade or aid)?