There’s no such thing as bad publicity, or so the adage goes. But while African issues like AIDS and poverty are buzzwords in the Hollywood charity circles, actual results are likely to be minimal, except perhaps at the box office. An August 13 cover story in the New York Times style magazine examined the building momentum of attention, celebrity visits and donations to African aid projects.

Despite ridicule-inviting statements like: “Africa — rife with disease, famine, poverty and civil war — is suddenly ‘hot,’” the paper makes an important observation. With latecomers like Madonna attempting to capitalize on the positive publicity people like Bono, Bill Gates and Brad Pitt have derived from African visits and advocacy, the increased profile of humanitarian work in Africa may not be evidence of any changes in public opinion or U.S. policy.

Instead, pledging support or cash to African causes may be simply a new way for celebrities to get noticed, and for average Americans to feel like they are contributing to the less fortunate. Not to downplay the latter, or even criticize celebrity attention garnering (when it could actually help people), but the hype and popularity of the moment cannot replace long term commitment to sustainable improvements in Africa’s infrastructure, and even the best celebrity endorsed plan faces serious challenges.

Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia economist who has been arguing for increased foreign aid for years, makes a convincing case in his recent book The End of Poverty. His basic contention is that rich countries already have the money that could easily eliminate poverty and disease and bring up the global standard of living, and that these countries could distribute it without causing themselves much hardship. Not only that, but the costs of not acting to stop these problems (for example the costs of emergency famine relief or intervening in a war) outweigh the costs of ramping up aid anyway. Therefore, Sachs writes, aid should be increased “both out of enlightened self-interest of the rich nations and out of a deeper human need at the individual level.”

The concept makes perfect sense. Aid to Africa could be an investment in the future of the globe. As Bono expresses in eloquence that leaves little doubt as to how U2 won its Grammys (did I mention that the foreword of Sachs’ book is written by Bono?), “I’m a singer with an ear for a melody. Great ideas have a lot in common with a great melody...Jeff is hard to ignore.”

Sachs deserves a lot of credit for his advocacy and pioneering research into a framework to help underdeveloped nations, and Bono was one of the first celebrities to start the engines on the Africa band-wagon so he might arguably be excused from self-serving publicity stunts. But as someone with an ear for a melody, Bono should also know that the delivery is crucial. If you can’t sing, the fact that the melody is great only marginally matters. Indeed it may not even be recognizable.

As of yet, no one has proven themselves competent enough to enact Sachs’ proposal and even if celebrities and mere mortals alike continue to be enthralled with raising more money, there is no guarantee that it will be used properly or even used at all. In contrast, efforts of a much smaller scale than the one Sachs proposes are being consistently bungled.

In 2005, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria suspended its grants to Uganda after the discovery of what it called “financial irregularities.” Officially, according to the Fund, about $280,000 was stolen by manipulated exchange rates in grants given to the Ugandan government. But the problems were much more extensive than officially acknowledged.

Some Global Fund money was abjectly stolen. The Global Fund grants to Uganda, which included over $66 million to fight malaria, have yet to result in the purchase of a single mosquito net by the Ugandan government, which was supposed to use the money to buy 1.8 million of them.

In a story less publicly reported outside Uganda, when the Global Fund attempted to circumvent the government and pump the money directly into civil society through NGOs, there was a sudden boom in NGO creation that resulted in widespread fraud. Different groups with permutations of similar tear-jerking names along the lines of “Hope for Children,” “Hope and Children,” “Hope with Children,” and “Children and Hope,” all received grants and promptly did nothing. An inquiry later showed that these “briefcase” (or fake) NGOs were in many cases engineered by leading government officials and politicians.

While some of the money has disappeared completely, other significant chunks of it are still sitting in Geneva, with Ugandan officials saying they can’t spend it. On July 29, Kampala’s Daily Monitor reported that there is over $120 million in unused grants to Uganda and that the country (which was amazingly reinstated after the 2005 fiasco) is again facing disqualification for not utilizing the money. With money that has already been provided being stolen and sitting unused, it is difficult to tell how exactly having Angelina Jolie as a mascot for UNICEF helps institute any necessary reforms.

The efforts of Hollywood elite and requisite accompanying publicity could make a difference, but it will take more than photo shoots and donations. Public focus could be channeled to demand accountability from groups like the Global Fund, or even World Bank and IMF. Such organizations are in many cases all too happy to dump their money without properly securing the distribution mechanisms that make sure it reaches its intended beneficiaries. The donors then return to state sponsors and middle-class donors alike, brag about how much money was given here or there, and everyone feels better about themselves without overdue worrying about a tangible outcome.

But changing this cycle requires a commitment and persistence that may not fit with the movie star cause of the moment. Lobbying leaders and governments to change policies is probably the most important thing star power could be used for, and Bono, still leading the field tried to do exactly this at the G-8 summit of world leaders last year. As Bono has discovered, discussion of accountability frameworks does not get the same press reaction as photos with orphans of AIDS.

The increased prominence of Africa’s issues may also be short lived in the general public. For one thing, it seems unlikely that there is any actual rise in internationalism or interest in serious progress. Celebrity visits and church fundraisers for Rwanda or Darfur do not change the fact that a significant number of Americans would still be hard pressed to find Iraq or Afghanistan on a map.

In fact, Africa’s nearly impossible to miss geography may make it easier to sympathize with its problems. Besides being much simpler to identify as a whole landmass than through pesky individual states with pesky individual problems, perhaps its sheer size makes one feel better about the grandeur of charitably helping not just a group of people, or a country, but an entire continent. With such a big target and so many problems from AIDS to poverty, to education, humanitarian aid can’t help but find some needy recipients. Right?

Woodrow Wilson wrote that “friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” It will be interesting to see who stands beside Bono a year from now, when demanding help for Africa may no longer be a “trendy” activity. Even if the attention remains, it will take much more than friendship or publicity to solve the problems of underdevelopment, no matter where they are found.

Michael Wilkerson, a sophomore, just returned home from a summer in Uganda where he worked as a journalist. This is one in a series on his reflections of western attitudes toward Africa and its problems. He can be reached at mwilkers@stanford.edu.