Bono says the world's biggest industrialized nations need to do more to fight poverty.
Speaking May 15 from Berlin, the rocker-activist said the members of the G8 group of nations contributed less than half the money needed to fulfill their promise of doubling aid to Africa by 2010. Bono's advocacy group DATA - Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa - released a report showing the G8 nations increasing aid by $2.3 billion from 2004 to 2006.
Bono, however, said the nations must hike that amount by an additional $3.1 billion in order to appreciably affect African poverty. "These statistics are not just numbers on a page," Bono said. "They are people begging for their lives, for two pills a day, a mother begging to immunize her children, a child begging not to become a mother at the age of 12."
Bono is urging German chancellor Angela Merkel, who next month chairs a G8 summit in Germany, to ensure that fellow member nations keep their promise of financial aid.
The DATA report lists Britain and Japan as contributing most of the aid increase to date.