Why Africa needs you

YOU don't have to be one of the million people that Bob Geldof hopes will descend on Edinburgh for this week's summit of the G8 nations to know that this is a global event of real urgency.

Tony Blair, who was been locking diplomatic horns with the Americans over this, wants the rich countries to double aid to the poorest countries to combat a holocaust of death and disease in Africa from which 30,000 children die each day, where one in five children die before their fifth birthday and where life expectancy in Africa has now fallen to the same level it was 1,500 years ago.

At the heart of the campaign to alert everyone to the scale of this crisis is Make Poverty History. The brainchild of Richard Curtis - the genius behind Blackadder, Mr Bean, Four Weddings And A Funeral and the founder of Comic Relief - Make Poverty History is a coalition of more than 450 organisations (charities, development agencies, and church groups) throughout Britain.

They have three demands: to halt and reverse the cruel injustice of the present world trading system; to provide more and better aid; and to cancel the burden of debt by which the world's poorest countries are crippled. And the demand is gathering momentum. Already, Make Poverty History is the biggest movement of its kind in British history. More than 300,000 people have sent messages to Tony Blair via text, email and postcard while three million people have bought the telltale white wristbands.

Unusually, all three of the main political parties in Britain are more or less united in support of a campaign which they see as adding impetus to the Government's own aspiration to make the G8 summit a make-or-break event.

Last March, the Report of Tony Blair's Commission for Africa laid out a blueprint for the future: an action plan to build "a strong and prosperous" Africa. It requires action by the rich countries and poor countries working together to defeat poverty. This is not simply about pouring the rich world's money down the poor world's drains. It is about delivering economic justice and building political freedom. It is about creating new partnerships to build a fairer world - and therefore a safer world for the benefit of all of us on this troubled planet.

I am proud to be president of VSO, which is one of those 450 organisations that make up the Make Poverty History coalition. VSO "trades" in professionals - individuals with the skills, talent and commitment to play a direct part in making poverty history. In the year ahead, we need to recruit 300 professionals - or one per cent of those who have so far emailed the prime minister - with public sector skills and experience to work in 17 of the poorest African countries.

Volunteers, sharing their skills with their local counterparts, have a vital part to play in supporting African governments, state institutions and other organisations trying to become more effective, better managed, transparent, accountable and equitable. Yes, those are all fashionable buzzwords, trotted out too often and too often empty of meaning. But in the case of Africa, they make the difference between life and death for millions of innocent people.

This is at the very core of VSO's work as I have seen for myself in many African countries. In Ethiopia, for example, our volunteers are at the very heart of turning the Government's priority of "education, education, education" into more than a slogan. Two of them, Deb Jordan and David Spinney, have helped create a modern Education Diploma Programme for teacher training. In the last two years, more than 1,000 teacher trainers have been through this compulsory programme. In turn they are now training 11,000 student teachers. Before long this will benefit more than 800,000 children in a country where at the moment, fewer than 40 per cent of the population complete primary education. One of many examples that I could give you of how "great oaks from little acorns grow".

Another of our vital programmes is in Malawi. This year, we need to recruit volunteer doctors and nurses to work alongside their counterparts in the Health Ministry as they struggle to combat the scourge of HIV and Aids. These VSOs will train local colleagues to administer the anti-retrovirals which the government has now pledged to provide free of charge to all. As you will probably know, Aids is destroying Africa. But here there is a ray of hope. With almost one in five of the adult population in Malawi "living" with HIV and Aids, this VSO project will help make the difference between life and death - not only for those directly afflicted but for the country itself.

So this is my pitch. If you want to make a difference and if you think you have the skills, then you and VSO should get together. I can promise you it works. More to the point, more than 30,000 professionals we have recruited over the last 47 years will tell you it works. And don't think you are too old. Today the average age of our volunteers is 38 while 16 per cent are over 50. If you are right person, we need you. More importantly, Africa needs you. Together you and VSO can really help Make Poverty History.

* For information on volunteering with VSO, visit www.vso.org.uk or call 0208 7807500