Blair report spares Africa's feelings

from the BBC

By Martin Plaut

In its first report, the Africa Commission, launched by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has largely ducked the problem of "naming and shaming" Western countries that have fallen short on promises to increase aid and African states that have not brought in reforms to improve democracy.

The report, launched in London by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, does spell out the shortcomings on both sides, but is careful to avoid pointing the finger at the states that have fallen below the terms agreed at the Gleneagles summit in 2005.

Only Zimbabwe is really singled out for direct criticism, although the conflicts in Darfur, the instability in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and the chaos in Somalia are mentioned.

At Gleneagles the aim was clearly laid out - for Africa's leaders to end the cycle of coups, crises and corruption and for the rich states to back their reforms by doubling aid budgets by 2010.

What is apparent from this report is that although both sides have fallen short of the mark, the feelings of the leaders concerned are mostly spared.

Follow-up

The panel appears not to be the vigorous watchdog Mr Blair promised to establish, to monitor progress towards the Commission's goals.
At its launch in 2005 he said: "The one sure-fire way of this gathering dust… is if there isn't a follow-up mechanism, and that is why in my view there has to be."

Mr Blair still backs the commission's work.

Speaking on a visit to Sierra Leone last week he told the BBC: "It has lived up to my expectations, but I now want it to live up to my hopes.

"We still have a way to go on aid, on trade, on peacekeeping, on conflict resolution and on some of the Millennium Development Goals.

"There are some countries that have shown it can be done. We have more democracies than people would have thought possible 10 years ago."

Achievements

The report is able to celebrate some real progress.

There are developments in Africa that the Commission has done much to helped to foster.

* The number of people living in poverty has levelled off over the past few years, and Africa's poverty rate has declined by almost 6% since 2000
* Primary school enrolment has increased by 36% between 1999 and 2005 and infant and child mortality have declined in many parts of Africa
* The Global Fund for Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis received $10 billion - these resources will go far in terms of combating these diseases in Africa

At the same time there are long sections of the report detailing the current food crisis and Africa's vulnerability to climate change.

On aid, there has also been real progress.

Shortfall

Huge sums of Africa debt have been written off - $60 billion dollars in total.

But the report points out that the rich countries - the G8 - are falling behind on the promises they made to double aid by 2010.

LIST OF AFRICAN DEMOCRACIES
Democracies: Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Comoros, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia
Non-democracies: Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Somalia, Swaziland, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe
Source: Steve Radelet
Center for Global Development

"Current trends indicate that without major changes in programmable aid, most countries will be well below this target."

But none of the offending countries are named.

According to the Organisation for Co-operation and Development's latest report, six industrialised countries failed to meet their aid targets: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Japan and Norway.

Others have escaped by shifting the targets.

So in 2007 President Nicholas Sarkozy of France simply announced that the pledge given at Gleneagles to provide 0.5% of gross domestic product by 2007 was moved to 2010.

The preliminary figures for 2007 from the OECD show that France actually provided 0.39% - way short of its original promise.

Reform deficit

If the industrialised world failed Africa, then the continent also failed to live up to its promises.

The report shows that just 23 states can be considered democracies.

But it fails to name those that come up to the mark.

Luckily Steve Radelet, from the Center for Global Development, to whose work it refers, does.

That the Africa panel would use a source that describes Ethiopia as not being a democracy might come as something of a surprise to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, since he was a member of the original Blair Commission and helped draw up its 2005 report.

Rwanda, which is being advised by Tony Blair might also be concerned to be in the same category.