eradicating poverty isn't as easy as it sounds... instead of signing a list why not come up with a list of details that could be used to eradicate poverty? i think that would be a better way to do things... furthermore, once you try to eradicate poverty in Africa how do you think this will affect you? all of these countries in africa weren't "poor" until they were introduced to this whole idea of globalization... they were independant and sufficient in sustaining themselve with no problems...
to take this further a bit more, do they want more interference from us? do they want their culture to be become something like ours? with our prescence comes influence and that may not be something they want... will they even let us help them? pride and a sense of who they are and what they can do by themselves may bar us from helping them... just some more questions you should think about...

Thanks for taking the time to write this comment.

You're right that involvement isn't help. In fact, the influence of Europe started out with colonization and that's not very helpful, but in fact selfish. Even 'aid' can be selfish. For example, masking subsidies for domestic corporations in the form of unecessary commodities is also self-serving and short-sighted. But there have been meaningful forms of aid, such as the aid the US provided to Europe through the Marshall Plan.

There have been many people who've already come up with details and lists with more competence than I possess, so I defer to them. If there are governmental policies that you disagree with andyou feel they are hurting Africa, you should organize or join a movement to convince our leaders that our policies must change. That's very much what Live8 is about, except that we don't start out by blaming ourselves for Africa's problems. Check out DATA. Data stands for Debt, AIDS, Trade, and Africa. I found that link on the Live8 site.

What's important is recognizing that we are influencing them and they influence us. Doing nothing is like endorsing what we're doing now. There are many issues involved in helping Africa, and it starts with recognizing the situation and wanting to improve it. Live 8 was about getting people to manifest that awareness in a meaningful demonstration to our leaders to change the way we interact with Africa.