Unkept G8 promises to Africa
The Gleneagles G8 summit was unusual in requiring leaders to sign up
to a series of specific measures.
World leaders gather around British Prime Minister Tony Blair as he
announces a $50bn (œ28.8bn) aid boost at the end of the G8 summit in
Gleneagles, Scotland. |
British Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted to put the seal on his "year
for Africa", not with vague offers of goodwill, but concrete measures.
When he launched his Commission for Africa report earlier that year
he said that the radical and costly package of measures in it would now
be British government policy. A year on Britain remains committed, and
even publishes a monthly account of "milestones" achieved, but much more
remains to be done.
Fractured
Even before Gleneagles, the G8 countries had agreed to increase debt
write-offs, and at the summit itself Mr Blair won the endorsement he
wanted for major increases in aid, as well as a promise to make Aids
treatment free and provide universal access to free primary education
and health care.
But keeping the commitments - and the funding needed for them - has
been harder than making them. The coalition of support for the
Gleneagles process fractured even before the ink was dry on the
declaration. At one end, Bob Geldof said: "On aid 10 out of 10, on debt
eight out of 10."
At the other, Kumi Naidoo of the Global Campaign against Poverty,
said: "The people have roared but the G8 has whispered." The decision to
phase in the aid increases by 2010 was "like waiting five years before
responding to the tsunami", according to Mr Naidoo. Since then, much of
the attention from campaigners has been on whether the promised $50bn
increase in aid for Africa was really new money, and whether it was
right to count debt cancellation as part of the development budget - as
has traditionally been done - or whether this is, in the words of Oxfam,
"double counting".
Broken promises?
Now even those who were most enthusiastic about the progress made at
Gleneagles are hardening their positions.
Bob Geldof's close ally in this, Bono, said after the latest
pre-summit G8 Finance Ministers' meeting in St Petersburg that "last
year's promises to Africa are already in danger of being broken".
He was speaking after a decision was delayed on funding for new
research into vaccines for diseases that affect the poor.
It is in details like this that the hopes of Gleneagles will be lost
if the funding does not come. Apart from Britain, the other European G8
members - Germany, France and Italy - have not yet committed themselves
to the funding they promised.
Germany in particular, under Angela Merkel, is proving to be
lukewarm. In the US, President Bush is battling with Congress over
keeping his promises. He requested a $3bn rise in his aid budget, but
Congress has cut that by two-thirds.
Funding boost
The debt picture, though, looks much clearer. Free health care in
Zambia, better roads and more secure food supplies are all now more
possible because many countries have access to funds that they were
previously remitting to service their debt. It will be easier for
campaigners to say that it is not enough, but harder to make the case
stick than the case for higher aid.
On the other big element that aimed to make a big difference - fairer
trade rules - there is little progress.
Although the current round of world trade talks was supposed to be
"the round for the developing world", it has now broken through several
deadlines without agreement.
There is increasing concern among the poorest countries in the world
that they may suffer from imposed liberalisation, rather than being able
to trade their way out of poverty on their own terms.
A new proposal is due to emerge from the World Trade Organization in
Geneva before the end of this month.
BBC NEWS
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