Africa: Band aid condemned

The World Development Movement (WDM) has condemned the lyrics of the Band Aid 20 single “Do They Know It's Christmas?” as promoting a negative and inaccurate picture of Africa and its problems. "Such images are patronising and out of date but worst of all they present a misleading impression of why Africa is poor and discourage people from taking action. African poverty is not an unfortunate accident of geography and climate. It is largely the result of damaging policies such as free trade forced on Africa by rich countries," said the WDM.