ACCRA, Ghana, May 21 (Reuters) - The self-described "odd couple" of international aid diplomacy, Irish rock singer Bono and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, arrived in Ghana on Monday night to launch one of the most unlikely campaigns ever to highlight the need for effective spending on development.
Over the next 10 days the two will to travel through four African countries -- Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Ethiopia -- to draw attention to the acute needs of the poverty-stricken region, using one another's position and celebrity to spark interest in a topic that each feels much of the world tries to ignore.
Simply appearing together draws attention, with Bono in wraparound blue-shaded glasses and casual dress and O'Neill in the buttoned-down garb of a former corporate chieftain.
They resemble the contrasting characters in "The Odd Couple," a Neil Simon play that became a 1970s hit television series and played on the differences of two divorced roommates -- the obsessively neat Felix Unger and his polar opposite, Oscar Madison, the ultimate urban slob.
"I'm the messy one, I don't have a very tidy room and I eat pizza," Bono joked with reporters as he and O'Neill flew from Frankfurt, where they met up after the U.S. treasury chief attended annual meetings of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Budapest.
BONO'S ACTIVIST ROLE PRAISED
Bono, who founded the rock group U2, has a long-standing and respected interest in international aid issues, especially involving Africa. O'Neill regularly acknowledges this by calling him a "substantive" individual who can appeal to young people effectively.
The trip comes as the Bush administration has committed to substantially more foreign aid spending, provided Congress approves it, of up to $5 billion a year. O'Neill has made a point of arguing that spending must be accounted for and show results, while insisting that much of past spending has been wasted.
In his remarks to reporters, Bono said "micromanaging economies from Washington" was not an answer to Africa's needs, where much of the population lives on $1 a day or less. "I do not agree with outside interference in the economies of the Southern Hemisphere and I doubt Secretary O'Neill does either," Bono said.
"Not only is it a bad idea, it can't be done," O'Neill responded, adding that it is vital to find a way to equip youngsters with education skills early so that they can be "intellectually independent" from as young as age 10 and able to continue learning on their own.
Bono agreed and offered a plug for increased debt relief for poor African countries by citing progress in Uganda, which qualified for relief under an IMF-run program called the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. But he said the development choices must be made by people in their own country, not by bureaucrats in Washington.
LOCAL CONTROL VITAL
"The success in Uganda (stemmed from) people being able to see where the money came from, how it was spent; notices had to appear in every region saying schools were being built and why from these debt cancellation monies," he said, adding that it worked because it was controlled by Uganda.
"I think that's why this idea that you can play Big Brother, like an older brother that then turns into Big Brother, is a real problem that has to be dismantled," Bono said. "We have to empower the people on the ground to work on these issues as part of a clear and transparent process."
Part of the purpose of the visit is to focus attention on African problems like the HIV/AIDS pandemic that afflicts millions and to investigate projects financed with aid from international financial institutions like the World Bank, which O'Neill has sharply criticized in the past.
He and Bono were to visit hospitals, schools and clinics in each of the four countries on the itinerary and O'Neill was scheduled to address the American Chamber of Commerce in Accra.
