Celebrity Diplomats

Living in Los Angeles, I have the “thrill” of seeing D-list celebrities on a semi-regular basis. With Hollywood in my backyard, this week’s articles “Beyond Hollywood and the Boardroom: Celebrity Diplomacy” by Andrew Cooper and “The Downside of Celebrity Diplomacy: The Neglected Complexity of Development” by Heribert Dieter and Rajiv Kumar about were particularly interesting. I was intrigued to see how different their opinions were on the subject. Despite both making excellent points, I found myself more on the side of Dieter and Kumar.

While Cooper makes valid points that celebrities can team up with wealthy businessmen (i.e. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet) to make an impact, I feel development should be left up to the professionals. As both articles mention, we have more and more celebrities trying to get involved with particular causes around the globe but few have the experience or education required to offer effective solutions. Celebrities can certainly use their “star power” to raise awareness for certain causes, but the nitty gritty aspects of development should be handled by experts. Each development situation is different and offers its own challenges. Simply throwing money at an issue often isn’t the solution and has the potential to cause more harm than good. Dieter and Kumar mention how Bono has teamed up with accomplished economist Jeffrey Sachs to tackle development problems in Africa. Both men believe massive amounts of aid is the key to solving issues in Africa. However, as illustrated in The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty by Nina Munk, Sachs’ vision has been unsuccessful. His African “test villages” which received massive amounts of foreign aid ended up falling short of most of the goals originally set by Sachs. Munk shows how there is much more involved with international development than just money.

In addition to celebrities, businesses dedicated to international development have also become more prevalent in recent years. For example, the shoe company Toms pledges to give one pair of shoes to someone in need for every pair of shoes you purchase. This sounds great to the casual consumer, but it’s not the best idea when it comes to international development. Dayo Olopade mentions Toms in her book The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa. She shows how most of the shoes Toms donates to Africa end up in countries where textiles (clothes, shoes, etc) are one of the main industries. With so many free pairs of Toms flooding the market, textile manufactures simply cannot stay in business. Thus, Toms has succeeded in providing people free shoes at the expense of an untold number of jobs in the textile industry. If Toms wanted to commit to making a change in Africa, they could move manufacturing facilities from China to regions in Africa specializing in textiles. By using African manufacturing facilities they may not be able to stick with the “one for one” slogan, but they would be doing much more to help the long term success of African communities.

I am certainly not condemning celebrities or businesses for trying to get involved with international development, but they should know their limits. They must know singing songs or acting in movies doesn’t qualify you as an expert on issues like poverty, AIDS prevention, and genocide. While raising awareness is fantastic, celebrities must stop short of being overly influential and leave solution formation to the experts.