We'll all be richer for helping Africa's poor

WHAT would you do if you had a billion pounds? The options are endless, from huge yachts and private islands to buying the Big Brother franchise just to make sure it never pollutes our TV screens again. But how many of us would choose to give it all away?

That was the choice made last week by Scotland's richest man, Sir Tom Hunter. After making sure his kids have "enough to do something but not enough to do nothing", the billionaire intends to spend his life using his fortune to combat disadvantage and poverty here at home and in the developing world.

You would think few people could take issue with that, but, this being Scotland, a few nay-sayers emerged from the woodwork to display a particularly unattractive mix of envy and ignorance.

Wealth redistribution is all very well, but the wealth has to be created in the first place.

Those like Sir Tom Hunter, Ann Gloag and Sir Tom Farmer, who have made big money and now seek to put it to good use, epitomise the spirit of 21st century capitalist philanthropy. If they fail, they are the losers. They don't want our cash, so for the rest of us, how can there be a downside?

I've just spent a week in Africa making a documentary about how Hunter's third way for the Third World will actually work on the ground. The day before I left, I walked past a beggar on Lothian Road with a homeless and hungry sign. It is hard to really take that seriously when 24 hours later you are confronted by Aids orphans with no shoes and people forced to burn bits of their wooden shacks to stay warm at night in the African winter.

But alongside the crippling deprivation, Africa is a land of potential and opportunity. Travelling through Malawi and Rwanda, we met tea plantation owners, coffee growers, cotton manufacturers and avocado cultivators who have great products, but lack the support and infrastructure to open their businesses up to the outside world.

The Hunter plan involves going into partnership with those people and offering them business advice and financial assistance which they then repay when the company gets off the ground. A successful business creates jobs and generates tax income which filters down into healthcare and education, helping build a brighter future for the whole country and offering a way out from the cycle of dependency.

It is a simple model, but dramatically different from the traditional approach to aid in Africa.

Like just about every other country on the continent, Malawi and Rwanda are crawling with Western officials from Non Government-related Organisations. (NGOs). Some do good work, but others manage to spend 60 per cent of their operating costs on trappings like expat salaries and gleaming new off-road vehicles.

The Malawian president told me he didn't know what many of the NGOs do. Part of the problem is that the scale of poverty and destitution in Africa makes it easy to pour money down the drain.

Hunter's approach is to set key performance indicators to allow success to be accurately measured. Essentially, it is about helping poor people to help themselves, and we all have a part to play in that.

Most of us drink tea and coffee, but don't really think about where it comes from. A few days ago, I stood in a tea plantation high in the Rwandan hills and listened as the owner explained most of his profit disappears into the hands of middlemen at the giant commodity market in Mombassa. He gets just 30p a kilo for tea that will go on to sell for £3 a kilo in Britain.

The Hunter plan would offer direct access to the high street, cutting out those who siphon off the value. In addition, marketing support would allow the owner to develop the brand, telling the story of the people who grow the tea and maximising the premium nature of the product. Simply by making a choice as a consumer and without resorting to cash donations that disappear into nowhere, we can all help Africa improve.

This approach is untested and Hunter admits there is no guarantee of success, but it must be worth a go. What's the alternative? By sticking with the Western interventionist approach, we are consigning Africa to yet more grinding poverty.

To those who criticise, Tom Hunter has a simple response: "What are you doing?"

Two years on from the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, precious little has resulted for the poorest people in the world. If the politicians have failed and people power didn't make a difference, perhaps Scotland's richest man is the best hope. Whatever the outcome, his attempt to create change by giving away his fortune surely deserves our support.

It would be great to know that Scotland had played a pivotal role in changing the plight of Africa, but there is something more as well. In Malawi, they have a saying which translates as "I am because we are". By making a positive contribution, however big or small, we can all be the better for it.