Odd Couple to Hit Road for Africa

One sings in sold-out stadiums and the other sings in the shower, but when they take their show on the road they will become the “Odd Couple” of international finance.

Paul Hewson, better known as Bono, the black-clad troubadour who fronts the Irish mega-band U2, and Paul H. O’Neill, the button-down Republican who runs the U.S. Treasury, will leave next week on a fact-finding expedition to four African countries.

Bob Hope and Bing Crosby they’re not. But in the long and storied history of celebrity road shows, there’s never been anything quite like this.

“It’s a big piece of world theater,” said Los Angeles record and film producer Bobby Shriver, who arranged Bono’s first meeting with O’Neill. “Paul O’Neill is a tough guy who came up from nowhere, built a business, worked his whole life. And now he’s going to Africa for 10 days with a rock star? If someone came in with this as a movie pitch, he’d get thrown out of the office.”

The trip will produce plenty of sound bites and photo opportunities for an assortment of financial and entertainment reporters, including an MTV camera crew. O’Neill has even promised to don a pair of fly-eyed sunglasses to match Bono’s trademark shades.

It may not be high culture, but the intent is lofty. For 10 days, the charismatic rock star and maverick Cabinet secretary will attempt to focus the world’s attention--and its money--on a continent where poverty is endemic, disease rampant and economic growth elusive. If their Felix Unger and Oscar Madison act succeeds, the final total could make the $110 million brought in by last year’s U2 tour look like mere change.

But they’ll be working a tough crowd. Government leaders are ambivalent, the aid community is apprehensive, and the American and European publics seem largely indifferent. Much money already has been spent, yet conditions in Africa continue to worsen.

But backstage, 42-year-old Bono and 66-year-old O’Neill may not be singing from the same page. Insiders said the two camps do not see eye to eye on the best way to bring about change in Africa, and those differences are likely to become more evident as the tour progresses.

Although the overarching agenda is a noble one, the trip presents an opportunity for each side to exploit its association with the other.

“We’re Republicans, you know,” said one administration official who asked to go unnamed. “We’re not known for reaching out this way. In the popular world outside the Beltway, it’s probably not a bad image to have.”

For Bono and his allies, it’s another opportunity to help shape global development policy. “This is not radical chic,” said one associate, who also requested anonymity. “This is political power, real political power.”

There is one thing both sides agree on: It’s a marvel the trip is happening at all.

For several years, Bono has been making the rounds of important people in Europe and America to promote the cause of Third World debt relief. He has met with, among others, former President Clinton, Pope John Paul II, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush. He brought Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to tears by relating biblical passages to the plight of poor Africans.

His notoriety may have opened doors, but it was his familiarity with the complexities of global poverty, international finance and domestic politics that made people pay serious attention.

Bono’s proselytizing contributed to passage of a $435-million debt relief bill two years ago in the U.S. Congress. It was a factor in Bush’s recent decision to boost U.S. foreign aid by $5 billion over three years to nations that embrace human rights, good governance and open markets.

Yet when Bono began knocking on the Treasury’s door, O’Neill regarded him as just another celebrity do-gooder promoting another trendy cause. It took six months to arrange a 30-minute meeting, and as Bono began his debt-relief spiel, O’Neill still had doubts.

“The secretary cut right in, which people often don’t have the guts to do with a rock star,” recalled Lucy Matthew, who accompanied Bono to the May 2001 meeting. “The secretary just interrupted him, and said, ‘Have you ever been to Africa?’”

“Yeah, I have,” Bono replied. Bono recounted the six weeks he and wife Alison had spent working in an Ethiopian refugee camp following 1984’s Band Aid and Live Aid fund-raisers. There was no publicity involved; they went so they could see for themselves what conditions were like.

“The impression I got was that for O’Neill, that was quite a test to pass,” Matthew said. “After that, I think he kind of settled back and thought, ‘Well, good, at least he knows what he’s talking about. He’s been there, he’s seen it, he’s worked there.’”

O’Neill described a bauxite mine project in Guinea that he had overseen as chief executive of aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. In the blink of an anecdote, the two men bonded and joked about going to Africa together someday.

Two weeks later, O’Neill’s staff extended a formal invitation. A trip was planned for last fall, but the Sept. 11 attacks intervened. The discussions resumed this spring after Bono visited Africa with Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, participated with O’Neill on a World Economic Forum panel, received four Grammys with his U2 bandmates, performed at the Super Bowl, met with Bush in the Oval Office and introduced the president at the unveiling of the $5-billion aid initiative.

But O’Neill’s offer came with a challenge: Show me places where aid has changed people’s lives, not just lined their pockets.

Bono hopes to do just that. In Uganda, one of the first African nations to have some of its debt forgiven by wealthy nations, Bono’s camp plans to show how the money that would have gone for loan payments was used instead to hire teachers, build classrooms and expand primary school education.

“It’s no secret there are going to be some differences of opinion,” said Matthew, adding, “They’ll be handled diplomatically.”