Bob Geldof said yesterday that July's Live 8 concerts were, in fact, very successful, calling them "a hugely effective political device", and defending them against the idea that the gigs did more to bring attention to the artists that were involved than to the problem the events were designed to highlight. The campaigner is currently launching a DVD of a his BBC documentary 'Africa'.
Geldof said: "Some people may, perhaps correctly, view Live 8 as the blink of an eye. Five days later, the horrific, devastating London bombs dissipated the goodwill of the Olympic bid and Live 8. But the concert was only ever meant to be a device to push an anti-poverty agenda through the political process of the G8."
He told Reuters that the gigs heightened young people's awareness of the problems facing African nations. "The effect forever on the economic life of Africa is there," he said "the aid agencies are now marketing the young like big companies because the agencies truly understand. They always suspected it but it took marketeers in popular culture to be able to show that you can really inform younger people and get them to move the agenda."
On his hopes for the future of Africa, he said: "I am a possibilist, I am a pragmatist. I think the impetus is still there. This continent cannot be allowed to die nightly in the pornography of poverty that is our news screens. People cannot simply die every night over our dinner tables. That must stop."