Engaging with the Developing World is for life, not just for Christmas - Joni Hillman

2005 was going to be the year of development, the year when white bands would become as must-have as red and pink ribbons, when the previously uninitiated became au fait with the intricacies of debt relief and trade laws, and when people finally realised what Bob Geldof means when he says he's tired of still having to do Band Aid, two decades on.

With the G7 being chaired by Britain, as well as the EU presidency, the twentieth anniversary of Live Aid and the launching of the Commission for Africa, amongst other things, the work that had been put in to publicising this year as the greatest opportunity to right some of the numerous wrongs visited on the developing world was huge. Celebrities galore had been roped in to be photographed covered in various commodities – sugar, coffee, tea – to highlight the iniquities of international trade for Oxfam's campaign; Chris Martin would no longer have to furiously biro ‘make trade fair' onto his hand before Coldplay gigs because the MakePovertyHistory slogan would encompass the entire gamut of the development agenda; all manner of famous people would be touting their new white bracelets as if they were Ugg boots; The Vicar of Dibley had even got in on the act, cleverly seeping the message for the coming year into people's brains when they were too addled by festive spirits and mince pies to argue.

And then Boxing Day happened. Normally a time for nursing an Alka Seltzer and forcing down some bubble and squeak, this year the post Christmas downer plunged to new depths. Except that I couldn't seem to engage with it. Not only was it unreal - biblical even – and on a scale too enormous to digest, I was furious at the way it stole much-needed attention from what had been a nicely simmering awareness of the gravity of what could be achieved in 2005. Guilt at having spent too much on presents and parties pushed people into making vast donations to those less fortunate. Fair enough - the scale of the devastation (to use a news cliché) was dreadful and clearly merited assistance. But I wonder if waking up every Boxing Day to graphic images of sweatshop workers, AIDS sufferers, malnourished children, genocide and war would elicit the same response as the tsunami has managed? I think not.

The fact is that the death toll from the tsunami is a small number compared to the statistics that receive little attention from the media. More than three million people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 's war. But not many people have been on holiday to the DRC, as they have to the paradise beaches of Thailand and Sri Lanka , and Africa 's own world war is complex and long running. Similarly, the number of children dying of preventable diseases every year is also at the three million mark because a variety of pretty simple problems, like access to clean water and widespread vaccination programmes, have not been tackled effectively enough. The Gates Foundation estimates that, if HIV rates continue at their current level, by 2020 70 million people will have been lost to the disease. I don't see donation lines jammed with well-meaning members of the public giving up their cash to stop that happening.

The tsunami has become the perfect foil for people who simply can't be bothered to think about, understand or get involved in the politics of why the developing world is in such a sorry state. The DEC has staged a magnificent advertising coup in its use of the slogan ‘You can help' as a bid to tap into people's feelings of powerlessness in the face of a natural disaster. It is one of the few cases where I genuinely believe that throwing money at the problem will make it better. Throwing money at the more entrenched development issues doesn't work, which is why people aren't interested. Harassing your MP is such a hassle and understanding why multinationals are harmful is really boring when all you want is a Kit-Kat. So much easier to involve yourself with something that is no one's fault (unless you want to start on those who decided against an early warning system) and that happened in places that many of us can connect to, rather than in the dark heart of African troubles.

I'm less concerned about the money than I was – organisations have promised that tsunami relief efforts will not take money away from other projects and initial G7 murmurings about debt cancellation and trade justice seem to at least be heading in the right direction. All mouth and no trousers their proposals may be, but frankly that's to be expected. At least they're talking about it. What I'm really unhappy about is the awareness. No one is going to want to hear about any more ‘charity stuff' for quite some time, putting paid to all the big NGOs' awareness-raising drives prior to the main G7 summit at Gleneagles in July. That's not to say that we shouldn't be increasing aid flows, creating an international finance facility and cancelling debt (without the conditionality, Gordon). It is to say that, until enough people know what's really going on, not a huge amount is going to change. For that to happen, we need the media on side. Unfortunately, people (perhaps including the media) feel they have ‘done their bit' for the time being - maybe next Christmas they'll think about giving a fiver to Oxfam. What a shame when the work has only just begun.

Joni Hillman volunteered at DEEDS Bangalore in 2003. She has recently finished a MSc in Development Studies at SOAS and currently works for a social enterprise.