Last week, as Tony Blair unveiled the Commission on Africa’s report on how to tackle poverty, Bob Geldof, the Live Aid star walked to the microphone with expletive-filled advice for how Blair should get George W Bush, to step up to the plate on aid to Africa. Saving Africa, Geldof said, would cost “half a stick of chewing gum a day” for each citizen of the Group of 8 industrialised nations. And the prime minister agreed with Geldof.

The favour Blair asked Bush for backing him in Iraq was indeed a noble one — for America to join others in raising aid to Africa. He and the architects of the UN Millennium Development Project say the number of people living in poverty around the world can be cut in half by 2015 if rich countries donate 0.7 per cent of their GDP to development. The aid and attention that has gone to Africa from Europe, Japan and America pale in comparison with what rich countries have been squandering on far less noble causes than providing drinking water for a 3-year-old in Chad. The report asks for an additional $25 billion a year in aid by 2010. Blair will probably be able to get most of his European colleagues on board. Less certain are Japan and — most iffy of all — the US. It’s long past time for Bush to stand shoulder to shoulder with Blair on Africa, just as Blair stood with Bush on Iraq. Bob Geldof’s language was over the top, but his point was right. — International Herald Tribune