As a few entries in the run-up to the G8 summit hinted, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately considering the place of pragmatism in campaigning. Any campaign that seeks to make a quick impact is almost certain to have to make major compromises in order to get attention and drive action without the time to affect a fundamental change in mindsets.

In the case of the Make Poverty History and One campaigns those compromises have been front-and-center. From the outset Make Poverty History was accused of being too close to Blair’s government, a closeness that has allowed them to be deeply involved in the discussions leading up to this year’s G8 summit, but which necessitates a muted agenda.

As it was, the G8 summit last week ended with an announcement containing a nice big number, but little substance. On the issue of climate change it’s a major achievement to get George W Bush to make the concessions he made. But it was a major failure on the part of the other seven leaders that they didn’t show him up for the sluggard he is by leaving the US out and announcing a significant program to combat climate change, the sort of program that even the World Economic Forum is now calling for. On debt, the heads of government lost their thunder to the finance ministers who made a significant—but still far from revolutionary—announcement some weeks ago.

By means of comparison, the Cologne summit in 1999 made announcements involving more money and a revived debt cancellation process. Hardly any of that money ever made its way to those who needed it, as it was quickly caught up in slow processes and complex conditionality. But in purely financial terms that summit surpasses this year’s, yet we’re hearing campaigners with an unprecedented hold on the public senses praising that failure as a historic success.

And this side of the summit is where the compromises start to really show. While both Make Povery History and the One Campaign have made announcements which note the need for further action, their spokespeople have also been ridiculously complimentary to the eight men who got together on their golf course and agreed to hand out a little more cash to a few favoured client nations. Having renounced anything approaching a radical agenda in the run up to Live8, these campaigners are left without much to fall back on if they’re to explain why this summit didn’t achieve the radical ends we were told it would.

Beyond that there is the spectacle of Bono spouting nonsense like “We’ve pulled this off” and Bob Geldof describing this latest debacle as an “act of justice.” There is perhaps some compassion present, but justice the G8 summit did not bring.

It’s not justice to keep people in poverty, handing them just enough to keep them from dying, in order that they may service your wealth. And that’s what the current structure does. That’s why structural changes are needed: starting with debt cancellation and trade reform, but moving beyond them to new decision making structures which allow all voices to be made audible.

Tags: live8 | G8 | Make Poverty History | One Campaign | Bono | Bob Geldof | Debt Cancellation

A couple of weeks ago, the Guardian published a column by George Monbiot entitled “Bards of the Powerful.” He accused Bono and Bob Geldof of legitimising the G8′s role in Africa through their cosy relationship with Bush and Blair. His column followed soon in the footsteps of news that criticism of those leaders (it’s never been clear whether that is merely over the Iraq war, or more generally) was to be forbidden at today’s Live 8 concerns.

Monbiot comments that:

The two musicians are genuinely committed to the cause of poverty reduction. They have helped secure aid and debt relief packages worth billions of dollars. They have helped to keep the issue of global poverty on the political agenda. They have mobilised people all over the world. These are astonishing achievements, and it would be stupid to disregard them.

The problem is that they have assumed the role of arbiters: of determining on our behalf whether the leaders of the G8 nations should be congratulated or condemned for the decisions they make. They are not qualified to do so, and I fear that they will sell us down the river.

While he is likely the highest profile writer to voice these concerns (he was quoted during Bono’s Meet The Press appearance last weekend), Monbiot is far from alone in these concerns, both with regards to Bob and Bono, and more generally.

During the IMF and World Bank meetings in Prague in 2000, Vaclav Havel facilitated a meeting between key figures from a number of NGOs and significant leaders from those organisations and the governments they work with. While this was an unprecedented opportunity to open dialogue, the decision of several luminaries from the NGO world to attend the meeting was deeply controversial on the streets.

Many of those protesting raised serious concerns that such a meeting lent legitimacy to the IMF and World Bank while, as Joseph Stiglitz would later detail in his “Globalization and its discontents,” they had both taken on themselves a mandate vastly in excess of that agreed at the Breton Woods conference in 1944 at which they were founded.

Being any sort of diplomat is an exercise in trade-offs, and that is where Bono and Bob find themselves. In this interview with Bono, Madeleine Bunting discovered that much of the star’s strategy in trying to win the US around to debt relief came from advice from (legendary stock market investor) Warren Buffett:

Earlier this week he told the Guardian in Cologne how advice from Buffett, reportedly the second richest man in America, had shaped his strategy: “Warren Buffett told me, ‘Don’t appeal to the conscience of America, appeal to its greatness, and I think you’ll get the job done’.”

It is likely that belief that has led to a reluctance to criticise the administration: an exercise that must take enormous restraint. It is also likely a dangerous strategy if taken alone.

There has been steady progress in attracting broad support for debt cancellation strategies and increases in aid budgets, through the increasingly high-profile, (and very moderate) One campaign. But the US administration has so far given little ground on crucial issues of conditionality (even while the UK government appears willing to reassess current conditionality) and climate change. Report after report demonstrates that the poor are going to be the first, and hardest hit by shifts in the global climate as a result of man-made factors, but the issue remains too controversial to touch in many circles. So too does the issue that a group of nations, one that no longer even represents those with the biggest economies, continues to dictate policy for the world. The G8 has no mandate, but it’s hard to know how to address those power politics while still making a difference to the situation of the poor.

For a while, Thom Yorke of Radiohead provided a useful counterpart to Bono on the global campaigning stage. While Bono joked with the powerful, Yorke condemned their self-serving policies and the increasing power of undemocratic bodies like the IMF, World Bank, and WTO. But Yorke eschewed the limelight and doesn’t have the global profile of Bono. We need someone with the presence and popularity of Bono who can play bad-cop to his good. Maybe a balance would help us to make more headway on the deeper issues.

Tags: George Monbiot | Bono | Bob Geldoc | Live8 | Legitimacy