Rock stars are great at promoting worthy causes. It's good that they are focusing world attention on Africa's development problems, for example. But in prescribing solutions, their economics can be a bit shaky. Franklin Cudjoe, who runs the Centre for Humane Education in Accra, gave this example in an article in Monday’s Daily Telegraph:

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin [pictured] has said that Ghana's rice, tomato and poultry farmers need to be protected from cheap imports. Yet the problems of Ghana's farmers lie elsewhere: they and other entrepreneurs are stifled by punitive tax regimes and the high cost of capital, not to mention our disarrayed land tenure systems which lead to low crop production.

The real solution to Africa's ills, he says, will not come from media-savvy but economically flaky campaigns; it will come by harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit that exists everywhere. Then:

As our economies grow and develop, people will be able to afford better technologies, clean water, superior energy sources, better healthcare, and insurance. But one is unlikely to hear such ideas from rock stars...While these high-profile campaigns continue to blame western countries for our poverty, they simply give our own politicians more excuses to delay badly needed institutional reforms. Poor Africans would be far better off without rock-star economics.