Comments from the team

Meeting Jeffrey Sachs and Bono were the highlights of this discourse on the complexities of aid. It is always interesting to engage with aid optimists who believe strongly that with the right world politics and leadership we can eliminate abject poverty in our lifetime. They both have an urgency in their approach which is laudable and necessary given the tendency of many to accept as inevitable that the poor will always be with us.
Bono is much more than a celebrity bleeding heart on these issues. He has an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the economics and politics of aid.

We also met with aid sceptics along this journey such as Robert Calderisi and Keith Richburg who had valid points to make about their difficulties with aid because they had experienced firsthand how the whole aid business can be flawed in its operation. I found these interesting and stimulating conversations. It is true that corruption, conflict and poor governance are very prevalent in the developing world but for me that is all part of the challenge of development. I was pleased that during the interview with the Irish Minister Dermot Ahern that he confirmed that Ireland will reach the target set for aid of 0.7% of GNP by 2012 particularly in the context of an economic slowdown."

Liz O'Donnell

"When we visited, the shock of the post election violence was still palpable. Tourist numbers were way down and still a government had not been formed despite the deal negotiated by Kofi Annan. Over a thousand people had been killed in the violence and hundreds of thousands displaced and burned out of their homes. These poor people were in refugee camps and were being looked after by the UN and other aid agencies. Meanwhile the politicians were bickering about how many cabinet seats would be in the new coalition government. In fairness to the media, the scandal of politicians salaries and this quest for a 44 man cabinet made up of the two parties in a grand coalition was being heavily criticised on TV and in the print media.

Meanwhile outside Nairobi, the politics of it all had little relevance. Whole villages and towns, like Londiani had been burned to the ground and thousands of people fled their homes, firstly to the church run by three Irish priests and now moving on to a refugee camp. The priests had been there for forty years and were shattered after the experience of the violence which included picking up bodies and ferrying people to hospitals. They were adamant, politics had little to do with it. There is terrible inequality in this country. The economy is strong and the country was until recently viewed as stable and relatively prosperous. Yet the majority of Kenyans live in abject poverty. Underlying the political unrest were longstanding issues around the ownership of land and its division when Kenya gained its independence in the sixties. Tribal grievance is very strong and all of this erupted under the guise of the election and its dubious outcome.

One optimistic memory is of Francis, the young man who had managed to be educated despite living in the slums of Nairobi in abject poverty. The confidence and intelligence he showed and his commitment to justice and human rights was awesome and showed the life altering impact of education on human development."

Liz O'Donnell

"South Africa is still a land of contrasts. Alongside the visible signs of economic growth and prosperity sits the dogged poverty in the townships and in the countryside. Such was the scale of inequality left by apartheid to the new ANC government, despite their best efforts, the country still has a long way to go when it comes to lifting the abject poor to acceptable living conditions. My first impression therefore was of change but not enough. The massive Maponya Mall was a monument to an emerging black middle class of consumers but not far away in Soweto the miserable living conditions persist for the ordinary black south African citizen. There was a lot of excitement about the country hosting the next world cup and the optimism of people is palpable, particularly those who are lucky enough to have jobs.

This was my very first visit to the tiny Mountain Kingdom (of Lesotho) surrounded by South Africa and as poor as one can imagine. Nowhere here are there signs of first world prosperity as in its developed neighbour. Spectacular scenery is the first impression and it is easy to see the attraction of horseback trekking in the mountains. The people are very poor and the health status of the population very low given the high incidence of HIV/AIDS. The highlight of my visit was to witness Lineo a young mother testify to her co workers in the factory that she was HIV positive and receiving treatment. Her baby Thato of four months had been born healthy thanks to treatment, which prevented the transfer of the virus to her unborn. It was wonderful to see all these young women in work and economically active and also with the opportunity of receiving treatment for the virus at their workplace.

There is high school attendance in the country, which is a very hopeful sign for the future. The clothing factories, employ mostly women workers and it was difficult to see what opportunities existed for the men apart from services and subsistence farming. We ran into a bit of bother after a long day's filming on a hot and lazy Sunday, when men traditionally while away the day drinking beer. Our van was attacked and some camera equipment stolen by a young man who saw his opportunity and took it. We had no security and suddenly felt very much alone and vulnerable in a dangerous situation with large crowds milling around. Thankfully all we lost was a small amount of equipment."

Liz O'Donnell

"The overwhelming memory of our visit to Liberia is of an uneasy peace enforced by fifteen thousand UN blue beret soldiers. The country faces challenges on a huge scale having been devastated by fourteen years of brutal civil war. The physical infrastructure, roads, electricity supply, hospitals schools, public buildings have been destroyed or rendered inoperable. Outside of the capital city of Monrovia there is no electricity and even in the city apart from a few street lights and private generators the lights are out. The scale of need is immense. Development here is more a matter of rebuilding a country from ground zero. A new police force and army is being trained by the international community with a focus on female recruits. Former combatants have been disarmed, but with very little employment gangs of young men hang around with an air of menace and anger. In the absence of local police UN troops do everything from traffic management to providing security for the President and visiting film crews like us. Violent crime levels are high and rape is a particular problem. Large posters graphically instruct people not to rape or loot.

The combination of heat, humidity and rotting rubbish is nauseating in the crowded capital city.

A unique feature of the war in this region of West Africa was the widespread use of child soldiers. We had managed to track down a former boy soldier James, now l6 but who had been mobilised as a soldier when he was a seven year old and had admitted to killings. After the war efforts were made to reunite these children with their families and reintegrate them into normal society. James was returned to his mother after the war but sadly when we caught up with him four years later his story was not good. His mother had rejected him and he was living alone. A shattered ankle bone had not been treated surgically and now he was lame. The psychological scars, however were obvious and would be more difficult to treat."

Liz O'Donnell

"Highlight was meeting hip hop performer Emerson. I visited one of the worst slums in Freetown with him. It was incredible to see the response he got from people there and its clear that he is hugely popular because he has given a voice to so many people who feel let down by their leaders. Emerson sings about corruption and points the finger at Sierra Leone's politicians, accusing them of caring more about their own wealth than the future of the country. The appalling conditions in the slums suggest the country has a long was to go to improve, but Emerson seems to have tapped into a mood that suggests the people of the country will demand a better future.."

Aoife Kavanagh

"The piercing sound of a woman grieving for her sister is the memory which will stay with me from this trip. We were at the South Africa City morgue and the woman fell into a crumpled heap before us. Not only had her sister just been murdered, but this was her second sister to have been gunned down in a matter of months. As a witness to the latest killing, she was now under threat of death herself. I'd travelled to South Africa in 1993 when the civil war was coming to an end - this woman was an example of how it had been replaced by different type of brutal conflict."

Paul Cunningham

"The most moving moment of our trip to Zambia occurred for me on a Sunday morning when we visited a village a few miles outside Lusaka. There was a church service on and we were there to meet the villagers, to speak to them about their lives. As we would discover, their lives were extremely difficult, mainly because they lacked a decent water supply. They told us about having a single borehole for several hundred people, resulting in the spread of disease and sickness as well as limiting their capacity to produced food. We saw one hole which they'd dug near the church, at the bottom of which was a small puddle of what looked like vomit. This was the water supply for dozens of villagers. If they had a decent water supply, they said, they could meet many of their other needs on their own. But what was utterly sensational was that, during the service, you would have gathered nothing of this misery. A couple of villagers brought instruments - an improvised bass and a kind of banjo - fashioned from wood and string. The villagers sang in a way that brought tears to my eyes. They welcomed us in the manner of kings - I mean that they seemed like kings welcoming us. It was as if they lacked nothing of the things that really mattered at that moment - love, friendship and hope. I wept when they sang because I felt like a fraud who had come with cameras and microphones instead of a pump that would save their lives."

John Waters

The moment that stands out from my time in Pakistan was our arrival in the Kashmiri village of Khanian, close to the epicentre of the earthquake. Khanian is perched high up in the Himalayas; it was entirely levelled by the quake and more than half of its 600 residents were killed. We met a man called Mohammed Unis and his family. They had lost their baby son in the disaster. They then spent a year in a refugee camp about three hours drive away. When we visited, they had just finished rebuilding their house in Khanian - and they had a new baby boy. It is impossible to describe the warmth of the welcome we received. Many cups of milky tea had to be drunk! Given the misery they had endured, and given that their surroundings were still fairly basic, it was hard not to be moved by the family's hospitality. Their situation was a reminder of the fact that even before the earthquake many people in Kashmir lived in grinding poverty, with little education and few opportunities. It also became clear that Western visitors were still a novelty. Because of the decades of conflict with neighbouring India (what is known as “the line of control” is not that far away) the areas we visited had long been closed to

Rachael English