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Fresh help for Africa is on the way. When evangelicals joined U2's Bono this past summer in lobbying the political leaders of the world's richest nations for more trade, aid, and debt relief for Africa, the movement's heavy hitters signed on: John Stott, Billy Graham, and Rick Warren.

Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you" (Matt. 26:11a). But he might also have cited corruption as another ever-present human condition. In Africa, neither the poor nor the corrupt have been transformed by the $1 trillion in foreign assistance poured over the last 50 years on that continent of 57 nations with 11.7 million square miles of land and 906 million people.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) study released in June, shortly before the Group of 8 summit, found that there is no correlation between aid and prosperity in sub-Saharan Africa.

But in September at the United Nations in New York City, Bread for the World, the One Campaign, and Bono's DATA organization were scheduled to pool their advocacy resources to keep global poverty on the front burner of policymakers. Top government leaders would be examining the so-called Millennium Development Goals.

This broad-brush, eight-point program aims to eradicate poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, fight killer diseases, protect the environment, and partner globally for economic development.

The focal point is Africa. But the tragic reality of Africa's history is that help from the outside often doesn't. Will billions of dollars of new help, promised by the world's wealthiest nations, make a difference or make things worse?

William Easterly, a disaffected former World Bank economist, has nothing but doubts and lots of examples of rosy projections that were dreadfully wrong. In the central African nation of Zambia, heavily evangelized by Christians for decades, one such forecast predicted the nation would have a per capita income of $20,000 at this point in its history.

Instead, Zambians languish at an average of $500 per year. The country is as poor and corrupt as ever.

Nigeria is even more shocking. Awash in billions of oil and gas dollars and $3.5 billion in aid between 1980 and 2000, Nigeria remains a field of destitution, with open sewers, foul tap water, garbage-strewn roads, tribal violence, and corruption in both state and church. One former general stole $20 billion from government coffers, according to testimony before the U.S. Senate. In the central Nigerian city of Jos, Anglican Bishop Benjamin Kwashi told Christianity Today, "The only way the church can stamp out corruption is to begin from within. In our diocese, we are mercilessly insisting on accountability to the last penny."

Also, Westerners have been trying to fix West Africa's Sierra Leone since the early days of independence in 1961. Today, Sierra Leone's teachers routinely go for months without salaries, which officials have stolen. One big batch of medicine was imported at the rate of a $1 bribe for each $1 of medicine.

Fundamental change in Africa, experts say, is going to take more time, talent, and treasure than anyone can possibly imagine.

That enormous challenge doesn't seem to discourage this new coalition of Christians. Rock star Bono has issued a public challenge to Christians: "If the church doesn't respond to the plagues afflicting Africa, who will?"

The presence of evangelicals in the fight against global poverty, many note, brings fresh talent and resources to the table, which are being noticed in high places.

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October 2005, Vol. 49, No. 10