You expect to see the iconised leathery face that has weathered many a storm. He is only in his 50s, but in photographs he looks at least a hundred years old. But when you come face-to-face with him, he looks surprisingly younger. He is no Adonis, but he exudes a kind of acerbic charm. He looks incurably tired and indefatigable at the same time. A strange combination, that.

Hundreds of questions milling in the head, pared down to half a dozen, you shoot the first one. He is articulate and earnest. He is outspoken and honest. Asking him about Africa is like touching a raw nerve.

Live 8 that you organised in 2005 created global awareness about Africa. Africa Progress Panel was set up to monitor the aid flow. Realistically, what does the report card look like?

Well, we are having the first meeting of the Progress Panel in March-April. We are constructing the first part of the report now. It is going to be a very sketchy report initially, because we have only really been together only for two to three months. Every one's busy ... you know. Professor (Muhammad) Yunus is involved with Bangladesh elections and Bob Rubin is running Citygroup…. But as we get going into the first year, we will do a very definitive report.

What about the Millennium Development Goals?

With regard to the Millennium Development Goals, they were agreed by the world in 2000. By 2004, it was clear that they were clearly way off track. So there needed to be a route map so as to know how to get there. And so the Commission for Africa was formed. That gave really an excellent analysis of why Africa was outside the global economic loop. And as I said, it gave the route map as to how to achieve the goals.

And what if they are not achieved?

If we don't achieve that we are in trouble. That's the truth. I mean, yes, it's the moral issue of poverty. And it's also the economic absurdity that we would keep half the population of the world out of the loop. That makes no sense economically. The thing is to bring them in and create more wealth for everyone.

How far has it worked?

Gleneagles was the first part of that. That commitment must be kept. So with the debt part it was a brilliant first step. It was about 55 billion dollars, which immediately enabled Zambia with 25 per cent aid, for example to initiate for the first time free national healthcare service in March last year. Tanzania put all its children into primary school for the first time. All the children. Uganda put 1.8 million in. So you know, it goes on and on.

What about debt cancellation in Africa?

Debt ... it removed 19 countries from debt slavery. You know, there is no difference between being in chains physically and being in chains financially. There is no difference. You can't progress in life. You can't send children to school; you can't build hospitals. This is an impossible situation. As a result, your populations die, you have them shackled in poverty for their lives and they die very young. That is ridiculous. That was the first step. And that was achieved and we have already seen all the advancement and progress made.

Aren't most countries slacking in aid commitments and isn't progress frustratingly slow?

Yes, most countries are already off track. They say they are not off track, but they are. The ridiculous thing is, they are counting Nigerian and Iraqi debt relief as aid. Now, on the one level, the Nigerian debt relief — if you are a policy maker you will say, 'Of course we are counting that as debt relief because we are paying for it. That is not actually true in Nigeria's case because they did a business deal, just like I was a businessman, I'd buy your debt from your business and I'd take the business. So, we ask African governments to behave responsibly. When they do, we can say, that's your aid.

Potentially. Nigeria is one of the richest countries in the world, but at the moment it's one of the poorest. And we must deal with the reality of now. As for Iraqi debt relief, it shouldn't be counted as aid at all. It's nonsense!

So we have to go over those things. And why I like the African Progress Panel is because it's very powerful. Kofi Annan's chairing it, and I imagine Tony Blair will come on to it once he leaves office, Bob Rubin the Treasury Secretary of the United States under Bill Clinton is there and Prof Yunus, Olusegun Obasanjo, Gracia Michelle Peter Eigen.... This is a powerful group. So, we hope we will influence things. That's the situation today, and the next G8 is coming up in Germany and (Angela) Merkel has put it back on the agenda for Africa. So it's a very powerful moment. We are organising a campaign in Germany.

But isn't that yet another meeting? What about ground reality?

The situation is that you cannot leave it up to the G8. I don't understand why the Opec countries are not more active. For example, they set up a fund, I think in 1975 or 1979. Since that period, Opec — we are talking about, perhaps the richest cartel in the world — has given 8.5 billion dollars. That's what Britain gives every year.

Isn’t that way too lopsided?

Lopsided? It's pathetic! It's wrong! And it's not considered immoral. And if you take the Arab League, it is the one area where they can act together. The Arab League are like the European Union. They can't agree upon anything. They are a very rich group. Just like Europe. So you know, just as Europe failed to stop the killing in Kosovo and they had to beg the Americans to come in, so, too, the Arab League is failing to stop the killing of Africans in Darfur. This is their responsibility. They always say, 'This is our part of the world, it's our responsibility and you keep out'. Okay. But deal with your responsibility! You know next week, the Arab League will meet in Riyadh. What are they going to do? And if you are going to do nothing, you have no authority to speak on any other issue. What they promised to do last year was to give 15 million dollars to the Africa Union Forces. 15 million? The monthly cost of the AU Forces is 40 million dollars.

The slogan of Live 8 was 'We don't want your money, we want your voice'. Are the voices of ordinary people louder than yours and Bono’s?

Yes, I believe it is because Bono and I are two votes in elections. So we are nothing. But if you have millions upon millions voting with their ears or their voices that is ignored by the democratic states, they will suffer in the elections because when the elections come, we will remind the people who wanted this to happen, what their government did not do — promised to do, but did not do. I will not say, 'Don't vote against them.' That's not my job. That's arrogant to say. But remember, back in 2005, we said we’ll do this, and the governments said, ‘Okay, we’ll do it, too.’ But they haven’t done much. Are these liars or what? Do you want liars in the government? Simple. So it’s not that Geldof and Bono have any validity. We do not have any validity. I have been doing this for 24 … 25 years, Bono’s been doing this for 10 years. Because there is a constituency that listens to it, you have access.

So, ordinary people have more clout and louder voices than celebrities?

The thing you must remember is that a lot of contemporary leaders are Live Aid babies. When Live Aid happened, Blair was six months in parliament. And he watched it all day, and it influenced him. It had influenced that generation that something could be done about it. They realised this was not just a moral issue, that this was high politics. (Bill) Clinton watched it. (George W.) Bush says he watched it for three hours. This is this generation of people. We want to make sure the next generation of leaders carries it on. Let me talk about British politics. The Tory party never had a policy on globalisation or poverty. But because of what happened in 2005 (Live 8), they had to have one because millions of their party members were with Make Poverty History. Millions watched Live 8, millions helped with money. Millions marched to Edinburgh …millions! And yet their party had no voice for them. So they (Tories) were forced to set up a policy group and David Cameron asked me to be an adviser on it. And I said yes, because I’m not a Labour guy, I’m not a Tory guy. I talk for this issue. I know about it for many years. I have traveled all over Africa. I know their leaders. I know our leaders. So, I think we have access to the leaders on the basis of knowledge.

Now if you sit down with experts and if you don’t know your stuff, they won’t see you again.

In what way can you or other celebrities help? 

You know we help. We have an organisation that is called Data (Debt Aids Trade Africa), which is a lobby group. And we can make things happen between people that might not be talking to each other on other issues, but maybe we can help them agree on these things. Sometimes it’s effective. Sometimes it’s not. But Bono and I have no power whatsoever. The power lies with individuals. If I complain about the Arab League to you, and you write about this, maybe your readers will say, ‘I didn’t know this! Why can’t these powerful groups of people stop Arabs being killed and stop Africans being killed, and killing each other? Why can’t they? Why can’t they contribute?’ And public opinion will sway the guys who make policies. It should. That’s the way it should work. And sometimes it works, and sometimes not effectively enough. But what we can do is we can sway politics. And we can help things move along.    

 Why Dubai?

“It's St Patrick's Day on March 17. I'm Irish. There is a load of Irish and Scotts here. Being an Irish band, you are offered invitations everywhere in the world to go and do a gig, I mean literally everywhere, I mean even in Kinshasa, I've been asked to go and do a gig for St Patrick's Day. And I like Kinshasa, but I had a great time here the last time I was here, and it was good fun and you know, Dubai is an amazing place. It's a very interesting place. So I've come for the weekend.” — Bob Geldof

Knight out

Bob Geldof is back at the Irish Village in Dubai a year after his last visit, to regale fans. He is in an entirely different avatar here — a singer and songwriter, not a man with a mission. He is an artist now.

The event is free and the crowd thickens, but there is enough standing room for all. Some laze on the lawn and enjoy the breeze and the timeless voice wafting though it.

“The same old shirt, the same old suit, the same old place and the same old song,” says Geldof to an uproarious crowd. “I never thought we’d celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Dubai with a sandstorm,” he quips. “But it’s a balmy night.” And he croons to a crowd that can’t seem to get enough of him — some old favourite numbers, one that he wrote during a trip to a remote Africa, that was never recorded, and a nice mix of loud and fast numbers and soft and sensuous ones.

It may be a long way away from Boomtown Rats of the 70s. But he still can work his magic.

Organised kindness — does it work?

Though Bob Geldof’s name is inextricably linked with Make Poverty History, he and Live 8 that he helped organise are not without their detractors. A section of the media has accused Geldof of compromising the cause.

It is a sad fact of our times that large-scale organised charity very often, supports hidden agendas. In many celebrity-endorsed fund-raisers, the real cause is lost in the hoopla and hype and the aid does not always reach the target. Politicians become the true beneficiaries, gaining political mileage and brownie points. This raises the question — how effective are such events? Though many of the causes espoused by celebrities maybe noble, one tends to get skeptical about organised good.

The case in point is the star-studded RED charity campaign to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, championed by Bono. Reportedly, it just raised £9 million despite the £52 millions marketing drive. The portion of all sales of participating brands would go to fight third world diseases. But the drive is said to have raised more brand awareness than money.

This is, perhaps, why the world’s third richest man, Carlos Slim, recently made a light-hearted jibe at the world’s richest and second richest men — Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — when he said that businessmen can do more good by building solid companies than by going around like Santa Claus donating money.

Just noise?

Live 8 boasted of 10 great concerts. Billions around the world watched them. It was the largest political lobby ever seen. The upshot was, 30 million people signed a petition. This created enormous political heat. The G8 nations pledged to double aid to Africa by 1010, cancel the debts of some of the poorest countries and provide Aids treatment. “The best way to get politicians to take action is to make a lot of noise — they heard us,” said Bob Geldof. Was it only noise?