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Media releases > The Live Aid legacy
The new report that sparks a debate on how the British see the developing world -and why it matters
(7 January 2002)
Starving children with flies around their eyes, too weak to brush them off
- 80% of us are confident that the developing world exists in a permanent state of doom and disaster. They have the desire to change, but no ability to support that
- 81% say it is dangerous to stereotype people from other cultures, but 'Live Aid' images have caught British imagination in a vice-like grip. A relationship that revolves around an implicit sense of superiority and inferiority
- 74% of us believe these countries 'depend on the money and knowledge of the West to progress'. Experts warn that misunderstanding on this level breeds arrogance, fear and inequality in our relationships with other cultures - both at home and abroad.
On Monday 7 January 2002, VSO published The Live Aid Legacy, the most comprehensive research on how Britain sees the developing world, containing interviews with over one thousand UK adults, visitors from developing countries and expert commentators including Jonathan Dimbleby; Sorious Samura and Paddy Coulter, Reuters Chair, Oxford.
As the first consumer poll on the developing world conducted post-September 11, The Live Aid Legacy paints the picture of a nation acutely aware of growing links with other countries and cultures. Yet we commonly use images of famine and Western aid that are 16 years out of date and relate to only a minority of people in the developing world. Researchers found that the very power of the 'Live Aid' image fuels a belief that the developing world and its people are helpless victims; creating a psychological relationship that is often well intentioned, but revolves around an implicit sense of superiority and inferiority.
The Live Aid images that were once such a force for good have left a legacy that hangs like a cloud over our relationship with the developing world,
says Chief Executive of VSO Mark Goldring.
There is an urgent need to rebalance the picture. We must ensure that nurturing this grotesque lack of reality - that the majority of the world is one block of disadvantaged, poverty-striken people - is not the legacy of our generation.
The Live Aid Legacy research was inspired by experiences of VSO volunteers, who often struggle to relate their experience of living and working in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe to people back home, and is part of a wider campaign by the charity to promote a more realistic picture of life and work in the developing world.
This research proves that British people are not only ready for information more complex than the usual images of doom and disaster - but also that they will resent both development agencies and the media if we don't promote a more balanced world view,
says Mark Goldring.
Building better race relations and creating a population more willing and able to engage in global issues are two of the reasons given by the expert commentators on why breaking down the stereotype is important to Britain's future.
In a globalised world, the cultures that will be the least successful are the ones that are inward-looking, embittered, complacent
says Chair of the Reuters Foundation, Paddy Coulter.
Overwhelmingly The Live Aid Legacy proves that in a time when no country can remain isolated, and our interdependence with the developing world is non-negotiable, no one wants to be fundamentally deceived. 78% agree that Britain's future security depends on better understanding of other countries and cultures.
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