A Warning to G8 from Commission for Africa

from the Turkish Weekly

“With 100 million people on the brink of abject poverty, the cost of food will not be measured in the price of wheat and rice, but in the rising number of infant and child deaths across Africa,” said former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the launch of a new report by the African Commission. Mr. Annan delivered his speech exclusively on the topic of international aid coming from the G8 countries to Africa, and criticized the developed countries for not fulfilling their promises on the issue.

“An Extra $40bn Aid” is needed for Africa

The report of the Commission for Africa was prepared by a panel of prominent figures led by Annan. The report draws a mixed picture of the progress of the G8 countries for the fulfillment of development aid targets set in 2005. The idea in 2005 was that African countries would improve their democratic credentials while the developed nations would double aid by 2010. The collective target was set in 2005 as $130 billion to be reached by 2010.

Accordingly, the report stated: “We are in a situation where it is increasingly clear that traditional budgetary resources are too overstretched to meet the pledges, unless innovative financing mechanisms are promptly put in place.”

On the other hand, in this first report, the panelists concentrated on the problem of food prices in the contemporary context, and it devastating impacts on African continent. On the issue, the report said: “Unless some way can be found to halt and reserve the current trend in food prices, there will be a significance increase in hunger, malnutrition and infant and child mortality. Many countries are already experiencing the reversal of decades of economic progress and 100 million people are being pushed back into absolute poverty.”

In the report, the panelists strongly underlined the point that there has been enough rhetoric, and it is the time for the developed nations to help Africa to recover itself from the crisis of poverty and underdevelopment. Mr. Annan, within this context, said: “What we really ask for the G8 countries is not to make new promises but to meet the promises that have already been made.” Therefore, Annan called for an extra $40 billion aid to be delivered to the African peoples.

Advocating this rationale, the panelists in the report made some practical recommendations which address the most immediate problems of the continent. Among the others, the report called for increasing emergency aid to the UN World Food Program, lifting agricultural tariffs and making new investments to raise agricultural productivity.

The Commission for Africa

The Commission for Africa was launched by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in February 2004. In addition to Annan, the panel includes the former US Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, rock singer and activist Bob Geldof, Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus and former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.

The aim of the Commission was to take a fresh look at Africa’s past and present and the international community’s role in its development path. The work set out to be comprehensive and challenging, addressing difficult questions where necessary. Five formal objectives were established to guide the Commission’s work Below are those five objectives:

1. To generate new ideas and action for a strong and prosperous Africa, using the 2005 British presidencies of the G8 and the European Union as a platform;

2. To support the best of existing work on Africa, in particular the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union, and help ensure this work achieves its goals;

3. To help deliver implementation of existing international commitments towards Africa;
4. To offer a fresh and positive perspective for Africa and its diverse culture in the 21st century, which challenges unfair perceptions and helps deliver changes; and

5. To understand and help fulfil African aspirations for the future by listening to Africans

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.