Opinion - News Analysis   

Deliver on pledges to Africa: Blair

Ned Temko

The British Prime Minister joins the stars to persuade the G8 leaders to fulfill their Gleneagles trade promises.

TONY BLAIR has enlisted the support of Kofi Annan and Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates in a bid to put Africa back at the top of the international political agenda one year after Live8. The move comes ahead of a report this week which is expected to conclude that G8 leaders must do much better at delivering on the aid and trade pledges made at last year's Gleneagles summit.

Mr. Blair will make a speech on the Gleneagles commitments to a group of academics in London on Monday, during which he will unveil the establishment of a high-level international panel aimed at ensuring that the world leaders keep their word — a move that has long been advocated by Live8 campaigners.

Number 10 Downing Street sources said that Mr. Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, had agreed to chair a new Africa Progress Panel. They said both Bob Geldof and the Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, would also be members of the group, which would be formally set up within weeks. Britain would ensure the initial funding, they said, but Mr. Gates' charitable foundation had agreed to help to fund it in the longer term.

Mr. Geldof is due to join fellow Live8 stars Annie Lennox and Youssou N'Dour later this week in releasing the first annual report on how promises made by last year's G8 summit are being kept. While it will note major progress in increasing aid to Africa, it is understood that it will highlight shortfalls in meeting a number of promises.

Although the debts of 20 of the world's poorest countries have been cancelled, the Gleneagles summit pledged to do so for nearly twice that number. Mr. Geldof is also expected to call for progress on ensuring the availability of AIDS and malaria treatments, universal primary education, and on world trade talks. "It is all about accountability, both to Africa and to G8 taxpayers in whose name these promises were made," said Oliver Buston, Europe director of Data, the advocacy group set up by Mr. Geldof, Bono and Bobby Shriver, a nephew of the late President John Kennedy, which produced the report.

Mr. Buston said it was part of a wider campaign to bring pressure on G8 leaders in the run-up to this year's summit, which will be hosted next month by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "When the G8 leaders step into the Palace of Congresses in St Petersburg, we want them ... to know that the world is watching to see whether they come up with the plans to meet the promises," he said.

He made it clear that one reason for the new sense of urgency was a concern, after a pre-summit meeting of the G8 Finance Ministers, that promises on health and education were being kicked into the long grass.

Mr. Blair will use Monday's speech to highlight Britain's record on a number of such targets: it is the second-largest funder of AIDS schemes and has committed some £8.5 billion to help to meet the pledge of universal primary schooling within the next decade. But he will also acknowledge that particularly on a trade deal, further progress is needed.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Inflation worries
Talking with ULFA
The saga of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh
Listening to readers — and convincing them
Deliver on pledges to Africa: Blair
Last chance saloon for world trade
Protest against film
Witch-hunt
On the public sector
On duty?
Rajiv remembered
Rudest city
"We are trying to find an alternative path for our own development"

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu