African Issues High on G-8 Summit Agenda

from the Washington Post

Though Overshadowed by Emissions Talks, Leaders Consider Aid, Food Prices, Zimbabwe

By Michael Abramowitz

RUSUTSU, Japan -The United States and other members of the Group of Eight this week reiterated their commitment to doubling aid to Africa by 2010, seeking to assuage growing concern that they will miss the ambitious targets they set three years ago in Gleneagles, Scotland.

The leaders of the world's richest industrialized nations promised to create a global partnership of governments and nonprofits to address the food crisis that threatens to wipe out recent gains on the continent. They instituted "accountability" procedures to ensure that wealthy countries fulfill their promises of aid to Africa. The leaders also weighed in on another critical African issue by releasing a sharply worded statement questioning the legitimacy of the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe.

While much of the public focus at the G-8 summit was on global warming, a major theme of the meetings that concluded Wednesday was the ongoing effort by the powerful industrialized countries to address disease, poverty and political strife across the African continent. To emphasize these issues, the G-8 leaders invited seven African heads of state and government to deliberate with them this week.

This Africa effort has been a particular focus for President Bush, and his aides pronounced themselves pleased by progress at the summit, particularly new initiatives to train health workers, fight tropical disease and provide 100,000 bed nets to prevent malaria. With U.S. prodding, the G-8 also released reports detailing progress G-8 countries have made in meeting their past health and anti-corruption goals.

"The lesson of this summit is that the emphasis is on implementation and on delivery," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "The emphasis is on turning words into action and making them far more concrete that ever they have been in the past."

Before leaving Japan for Washington, Bush also hailed "progress on alleviating sickness in Africa." He told reporters "we had a comprehensive agenda on helping those who are being affected by disease live healthy lives."

But the view from many nongovernmental officials who gathered here to observe the summit was more critical. Several expressed alarm over recent studies showing that the G-8 is likely to miss its overall development goals unless it dramatically steps up its efforts. The United States is not considered among those countries in danger of missing their target, but many activists believe the United States is not doing enough relative to its wealth and size.

There were also unmistakable signs that the insistent U.S. drive to demand accountability on aid assistance was rubbing some of its allies the wrong way. Fabrice Ferrier, who works for an nongovernmental organization in France, said there is a belief that the United States sometimes wants to measure only those areas in which it measures up well. Others saw the final G-8 language on accountability, in a leaders' statement on African development issues, as relatively modest.

Kel Currah of World Vision International, a Christian relief and development organization, applauded the U.S. initiative but said the bigger problem is that the dollar needs for such issues as AIDS and food were much greater than the G-8 is willing to consider.

"Accountability is good. But accountability of low [aid] numbers is not going to achieve the desired impact we are all looking for," Currah said. "We need more money."

One senior U.S. official, speaking on background because of the sensitivity of the issue, acknowledged resistance from some countries over the accountability issue but said this year is only a start.

"You might say it doesn't sound like a lot, but we think we worked to really embed the idea of G-8 accountability," he said. He noted, for example, that the G-8 for the first time spelled out a five-year time frame for spending $60 billion to combat AIDS and other diseases in Africa; last year, it promised the money but was vague about how long it would take to spend it.

A more fundamental concern among activists and experts on Africa is whether the passion has disappeared from the G-8 effort on Africa.

Several said, for instance, that the collective effort on addressing the food crisis seemed relatively tepid compared to the problem: While the G-8 leaders said this week they have committed $10 billion to addressing the problem, the cost of alleviating hunger is likely to be much greater, according to Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, the coalition of U.S. nonprofits focused on world poverty.

"The good news is that the World Bank is beginning to try to lead a process," Worthington said in a telephone interview from Washington. "But to some extent, we are treating the food crisis as an expansion of business-as-usual, as opposed to really leading a new effort."

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