Bono has devoted his free time in the last three years to Jubilee 2000/Drop the Debt, a spiritually motivated campaign to relieve the debts of the world's poorest nations. A heartfelt Christian (in a mushy nondenominational kind of way), Bono was appalled that Africa's and Asia's basket cases spend billions to pay back loans from the IMF, World Bank, and First World governments. He was a fervent, early convert to Jubilee 2000, which portrayed debt relief as an act of biblical grace. In Christian tradition, every 50 years there is a jubilee, in which debtors can wipe the slate clean and start again.

Bono brought celebrity wattage to what he rightly calls an incredibly "unhip" issue. He frolicked with Muhammad Ali, Bob Geldof, and even the pope to bring attention to the issue. He also proved himself to be an exceptionally effective and persistent advocate in Washington. "He recognized that other people were more expert on the political strategy and the substance, but he realized he could play a unique role in giving the cause the spiritual and popular lift he thought it deserved," says Gene Sperling, who ran President Clinton's National Economic Council and met several times with Bono about debt relief.

Bono knew the issue and the numbers, and he presented the Jubilee 2000 concept to the administration in a very pragmatic way. Instead of demanding everything and fast, Sperling says, Bono pushed for realistic policy achievements, for the United States to do slightly more. He succeeded. Since 1999, Bono has made visit after visit to Washington, sucked up to the most peculiar people—Sen. Jesse Helms, Rep. John Kasich, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Pat Robertson—in order to promote debt relief. He was instrumental in getting President Clinton to cancel all U.S. debts (a small sum but symbolically important) and in lobbying Congress to spend $500 million for more substantive relief. And he is sticking with the cause. He spent this week at a debt-relief conference in Africa. In the spring he's taking Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to Uganda to sell him on the benefits of writing off loans.