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Peter Barron

Good money after bad?


The effectiveness, or not, of aid to Africa is an issue which comes up all the time on Newsnight. This week we spoke to Oprah Winfrey (which you can watch here) about the $40m she has spent establishing a leadership school for girls in South Africa. We also reported how, five years after the war in Sierra Leone and many millions spent in aid and debt cancellation, .

Newsnight logoMany are wondering these days if much of the money we spend trying to help Africa isn't good money after bad. Col Tim Collins has even gone as far as that the $14bn spent annually on UN peacekeeping in Africa has achieved absolutely nothing. Indeed, two of the countries most in receipt of western attention in recent years, , have been at war over Christmas.

So, could there be a better way? As part of a series of films on Newsnight next week about how technology is changing the world our business correspondent Paul Mason will be reporting on how the advent of the mobile phone in Africa is helping to provide better services, economic growth and even democratic rights where governments and agencies have dismally failed.

As one young Kenyan puts it, we know from years of experience that governments have been unable to deliver better conditions, so why do we keep giving them money?

Paul's film goes out on Monday, but you can watch it first and exclusively here and let us know what you think.

Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight

Steve Herrmann

On Saddam


A quick postscript to an earlier posting by my TV News colleague Kevin Bakhurst.

Several comments in response to what he said about use of video from Saddam’s execution objected to the fact that on this website we showed a still image of Saddam Hussein on the gallows awaiting execution.

On the day it happened the image, which included the noose, was on the front page for several hours and it remained thereafter. (We also used the video that ran on our TV news channels – which we do as a matter of course on all stories).

The decision to use the still image was not taken lightly and we realised some would disagree with it. We’ve been careful not to repeat the image needlessly in all the stories we’ve done since then about the event. But it was important to give our audience an understanding of how the event will have been seen by many in Iraq, the region and the rest of the world.

We are a news website and this was a key part of depicting what was by anyone’s standards a major news event.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the

Host

´óÏó´«Ã½ in the news, Friday

  • Host
  • 5 Jan 07, 09:14 AM

The Times: Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell writes about the new ´óÏó´«Ã½ Trust. ()

The Guardian: "Government officials will this weekend launch their hunt for a new ´óÏó´«Ã½ chairman." ()

Daily Mail: "TV watchdogs are to investigate the controversial broadcasting of Saddam Hussein being taunted on the gallows."


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