National Africa Network Newsletter
For the week of June 30, 2006
CONTENTS:
- Failure to deliver on G8 pledges has left millions to die
- Live8 and Geldof draw blank stares in Congo
- We could never make poverty history overnight
- Has the G8 met its promises to Africa?
- At 50, Is the Paris Club a Colonial Relic?
News and Background
1. Failure to deliver on G8 pledges has left millions to die, says charity report By Maxine Frith and Nigel Morris for The Independent, United Kingdom on
26 June 2006
The huge pledges of aid, debt relief and trade reforms that were promised at last year's G8 conference at Gleneagles have not been delivered, according to a report by Action Aid.
Next week sees the first anniversary of the summit, which coincided with the Make Poverty History campaign and Live8 concerts.
Tony Blair claimed a moral and political victory in the negotiations, which led to the cancelling of debt for the 18 poorest countries in the world, as well as a doubling of the aid budget, better access to HIV drugs and fundamental reform of the US and EU subsidy systems.
Writing in The Independent today, the Prime Minister insists there has been a "great deal of progress in many areas" over the past 12 months, but acknowledges there have been "disappointments", particularly the failure to reach a global trade deal. And in a speech tonight, he will hail the agreement reached at Gleneagles.
But detailed analysis by the charity Action Aid strikes a more pessimistic note, concluding that many of the much-lauded commitments from the world's most powerful leaders have not been met.
Its report, entitled Mission Unaccomplished and seen by The Independent, says millions of lives are still being lost in Africa and the rest of the developing world by the failure of Western countries to live up to the favourable headlines generated by the summit. The charity is calling for the millions of people who supported the Make Poverty History campaign to use the first anniversary to increase pressure on the Government over the failed pledges.
The report says: "At present, a mixture of backsliding, buck-passing and half measures by rich countries risk undoing much of the progress. One year on, the world's richest countries are moving too slowly, or not moving at all, on most of their key commitments to tackle poverty.
"Unless they take urgent action now to meet their pledges on aid, trade and HIV and Aids, the prospect of progress towards ending poverty will be jeopardised."
More than one billion people still live on less than a dollar a day. Seven million children die every year from poverty-related diseases and Africa is not yet on track to meet any of the eight Millennium Development Goals for 2015.
The G8 countries promised to double aid to Africa by 2010 as part of a $50bn (£27.5bn) increase in funding. But, despite increases promised by Gordon Brown, aid from the UK has fallen in the past year once debt relief and funding to Iraq is excluded.
Britain is still not on track to meet the target of giving 0.56 per cent of national income in aid, excluding debt relief. And the countries that need to increase their contributions the most - the US, Germany and Italy - are "dragging their heels".
World leaders agreed to cut subsidies and open their markets to the poorest countries, who cannot compete in world markets. But the report found that the US and the EU are still spending more than $100bn a year on subsidy payments to their own farmers, while continuing to dump cheap exports in developing countries so local producers cannot sell their goods in their own markets.
Forthcoming talks at the World Trade Organisation look set to end in deadlock, with France refusing to accept any outcome that implies reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
While the world's 18 poorest countries have had their debts cancelled, campaigners say another 40 nations need a similar deal. There are also concerns that, despite promises, conditions are being attached to debt cancellation, such as forcing developing countries to open their markets to richer nations.
A promise of universal access to HIV treatments is also not on track to be met, because donors such as the US have failed to contribute sufficient money. The funding gap is currently more than $10bn a year.
In a speech tonight, Mr Blair will insist more was achieved at Gleneagles than "all but those with the most rose-tinted spectacles thought was possible". He will say: "These issues were not high up the political agenda in the UK, let alone internationally. Now they are."
But he will warn: "Just because these issues are at the top of the agenda now, it doesn't mean they couldn't easily slip down again."
Mr Blair will signal his irritation over the slow pace of reform on climate change. He will say: "We need to begin to agree a framework that the major players - the US, China, India and Europe - buy into and has at its heart a goal to stabilise temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations. And we need to accelerate discussions - we can't take the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto."
Mr Blair will also announce the creation of the Africa Progress Panel, to be chaired by UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to produce an annual report for the G8, the UN and the Africa Partnership Forum to "maintain the international political profile of Africa".
2. Live8 and Geldof draw blank stares in Congo By Steve Bloomfield The Independent, United Kingdom
26 June 2006
In July 2005 hardly anyone in Africa had heard of Bob Geldof, let alone the series of eight concerts around the world the former Boomtown Rats singer was organising.
Twelve months on, both Live8 and Geldof produce nothing more than blank stares in areas like the North Kivu district in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The region has been blighted by more than a decade of fighting, mainly on ethnic grounds. Life expectancy is just 43 years, while the infant mortality rate is almost one in five. Just 11 per cent of children attend school and less than half of all families have access to proper sanitation facilities.
According to one humanitarian worker based in North Kivu, Live8 has made no difference on the ground. "With all the fighting here it is just one step forward and two back," he said.
Further north in the district of Ituri, 100,000 people are at risk from the pneumonic plague which has already killed 22 and infected a further 144. The medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has warned the outbreak could "spiral out of control".
The DRC has a land mass the size of western Europe, but just 500km of paved roads. Its infrastructure is so poor the brigadier general of the army in Ituri has not yet received uniforms and blankets for his soldiers he asked for six months ago.
While many of the problems in Ituri have been based on ethnic divisions, the country's vast mineral resources have proved too tempting for DRC's neighbours and Western mining companies. With all the gold, diamonds and cobalt at the country's disposal it could become one of the richest in the world.
The UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, Monuc, is the largest the organisation has undertaken. Crucially, the 17,000 troops, mainly from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco and Nepal, have the authority to use force against the various militia groups.
But despite the UN presence problems persist. Presidential elections will take place at the end of July and some humanitarian groups are considering scaling down their operations once a democratic government is in place.
Monuc commanders say they will stay for another 18 months but if a UN force is needed in Darfur humanitarian experts fear that the international community will not be prepared to finance two expensive missions in Africa.
3. We could never make poverty history overnight By Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Hilary Benn for World News Europe on
26 June 2006
This time last year, a remarkable campaign involving millions of people was reaching its climax. The aim was to pressure world leaders meeting at the G8 summit in Gleneagles into decisive action to tackle the scandal of global poverty.
Thanks in no small part to the weight of public opinion behind the Make Poverty History campaign and Live8, the international community listened and acted.
World leaders at Gleneagles agreed to double aid, write off debts, train peacekeepers, boost investment in health and education, make Aids drugs available to all and tackle climate change.
It was a remarkable result in which millions of people can take pride. But that was, we accept, just the first stage.
These fine words will mean nothing without delivery on these commitments and real change for millions of the poorest people on our planet.
No one expected that we could make poverty history, or reverse climate change, overnight. These are long-term problems and the solutions will be long-term too.
But millions who campaigned in the run-up to the G8 summit have every right to expect immediate action to start to put things right. With the G8 due to meet again in St Petersburg, what progress has there been?
We are publishing a booklet that shows what we believe has happened so far. It shows a great deal of progress in many areas, but does not shy away from the disappointments, particularly the failure to reach a global trade deal.
First, the good news. International aid increased by around 25 per cent between 2004 and 2005 to over $100bn (£55bn) - well on the way to the target of $130bn by 2010. We will, in the next month, have cancelled 100 per cent of the debt of 20 of the poorest countries, a remarkable achievement.
Debt relief, by freeing up funds for poverty reduction, is one of the best ways of bringing about immediate change. It has already enabled Zambia to scrap health care charges. The $18bn debt deal for Nigeria will release $1bn a year to employ 120,000 more teachers and put 3.5 million children into school.
The UK will meet its target to provide 0.7 per cent of national income as aid by 2013, two years ahead of the EU target. We have already met our target to provide £1bn a year in aid to Africa and are increasing steadily to reach £1.25bn by 2007-08.
Nearly $4bn was committed in 2005 to replenish the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria. A special session of the UN this month agreed to fully fund all countries which put together credible, sustainable Aids plans.
This will require a mammoth effort because the UN itself estimates at least $20bn a year will be needed by 2010 to provide drugs, put in place effective prevention programmes and provide care and support for those affected, including orphaned children. But it shows how Gleneagles and unprecedented public campaigns for change have raised global ambitions.
The UK and Europe are showing the way. Britain is the second largest funder of Aids programmes and we have committed to provide £1.5bn between 2005 and 2008. We have also launched the International Finance Facility for Immunisation, which will save five million children from death between now and 2015.
We have also announced an £8.5bn down-payment over 10 years to fund plans throughout Africa to provide free universal education. Twenty-two African countries are already working on 10-year plans.
We have launched a new UN emergency fund to respond more quickly to natural and human disasters, such as Darfur and the Pakistan earthquake. And we have ratified the UN convention on corruption.
So there is plenty in which to take pride. But, of course, there is more we need to do.
Trade is the one key element of the 2005 agenda where we have failed to make the progress we hoped. In some areas, we have inched slowly towards a global deal but we have not yet dealt with the most difficult issues and the deadline to conclude the round - by the end of this year - is fast approaching.
Living up to the promise of this "development round" of talks is the single biggest decision we could make internationally to lift millions out of poverty.
From recent conversations with leaders including President Thabo Mbeki, President George Bush, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, we know there is a widespread desire for an ambitious deal to benefit the poorest countries. What we need is the courage and imagination to remove the obstacles to it.
Then there is the challenge of conflicts such as Darfur. We need to use last month's peace agreement and the new UN resolution to put pressure on all parties to stop the fighting and allow for a smooth handover to the UN when it takes over peacekeeping from the African Union this year.
In the meantime, we need to do more to strengthen the African Union's mission in Darfur. The Gleneagles commitment to support the African Union to establish a standby force for peacekeeping is a vital step towards a more effective African response to such conflicts.
On climate change, we know there is frustration over the speed of progress. The science tells us we don't have much time. The UK's work throughout 2005 was about securing agreement by all countries, even those which have refused to ratify Kyoto, to begin to discuss an international framework for after 2012. This very important breakthrough allowed agreement at the UN meeting in Montreal.
We also agreed the Gleneagles plan of action to increase developing country access to clean technology and help them adapt to climate change. In 2006 we need to now accelerate discussions on how to avert dangerous climate change.
We are sure there will be some who would like to have seen more progress while others will question our assessment of the last year.
We welcome this. For just as public opinion played a huge role in ensuring we did not miss the opportunity to agree steps towards making poverty history, so it must also ensure the international community delivers on its promises. Together we can make sure we don't fail the poorest on our planet.
4. Has the G8 met its promises to Africa?
By David Loyn for
BBC World News
The Gleneagles G8 summit was unusual in requiring leaders to sign up to a series of specific measures.
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.
5. At 50, Is the Paris Club a Colonial Relic? an analysis by Emad Mekay for
IPS www.ips.org
WASHINGTON, Jun 20 (IPS) - In a recent statement on the 50th anniversary of the Paris Club, a powerful creditors' cartel based in France, anti-debt groups described the club's policies toward borrowing nations as "medieval". But some say the word "colonial" is equally fitting.
Made up of 19 of the world's richest nations, the Paris Club was formed in 1956 as an informal group of creditor governments to manage their collective debt portfolio. It has since evolved into one of many foreign policy tools that one-time colonial powers, like Britain and France, have used to maintain their influence over the resources of developing countries.
The Club is one of several international financial institutions -- almost all of them devised and run by former colonial powers -- such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, that help industrialised nations promote an economic agenda that keeps many former colonies attached to their former occupiers.
The Paris Club's chief tool in its mission to maximise returns has been to push for loan restructuring in bankrupt countries. Since 1983, the Club has covered some 504 billion dollars of debt originally given through bilateral, and wrongly labeled, "aid" agencies or through export credit agencies, to dozens of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The brunt of those programmes has been borne by sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, but also by countries in Asia (the Philippines), the Middle East (Egypt and Jordan) and Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria).
The result of rescheduling debt has been the extension of repayment deadlines over a longer period combined with the introduction of penalty interest and in almost all cases the further implication of poor nations in debt.
Nigeria is a classic example of this vicious circle. In 1985, its external debt was 19 billion dollars. Although it has paid creditors more than
35 billion dollars while borrowing less than 15 billion, its outstanding debt at the end of 2004 grew to almost 36 billion dollars because the government ended up paying compound interest to the Club's creditors.
Rescheduling has also come standard with IMF programmes laden with economic conditionalities such as privatisation of state-owned industries and market liberalisation, a formula that critics say has worsened the debt situation in poor nations.
The secretive Paris Club has come to so closely coordinate with the IMF and the World Bank that representatives of the two bodies routinely sit in when debt management decisions are taken in Paris. Two Paris Club chairmen, Jacques de Larosi?re and Michel Camdessus, have acted as managing directors of the IMF.
The Club's official members are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the United States.
"Wealthy nations have imposed -- through the IMF, World Bank and the Paris Club -- a protracted state of unsustainability and emergency," said the Brussels-based anti-debt group Eurodad in a statement signed by dozens of independent groups.
"As a consequence, a permanent exit from the debt trap has been consistently and willingly impeded, keeping debtor countries in a state of effective domination and dependence," it added.
The "non-institution", as it is sometimes called, and whose members meet 10 to 11 times a year, is also criticised as a flagrant example of non-democratic procedures. Its decisions are taken on the basis of unanimity. But it allows in only creditors, and debtors end up on the receiving end of dictates that they do not help shape.
AFRODAD, a platform of African NGOs, once described the Paris Club and its relations with indebted nations like this: "In a jury of foxes (the creditors), the chickens (the debtors) are always the guilty".
Politics drives most of the Club's debt rescheduling arrangements. One of the clearest examples of that in recent years is how the Club came to forgive 80 percent of Iraq's debt under U.S. pressure. Similarly, it covered 67 percent of Serbia and Montenegro's debt and half the debts of the pro-Washington government in Poland.
By contrast, countries hit by the devastating tsunami in 2004 have at best been given only a one-year moratorium, exposing them to the payment of additional interest at a time of national disaster.
These examples, says the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), a Paris-based group, "reflect first and foremost the geopolitical interests at stake and are especially questionable".
Other civil society organisations said in their statement on the 50th anniversary of the club this shows "a level of political arbitrariness defying all common sense of justice and fairness."
"In the Paris Club the creditors act as judge in their own case," they added.
The groups have called for the creation of an impartial body to oversee the process of international debt management talks and to guarantee that the voices of indebted nations and creditors are both heard.
These days, the Paris Club appears worried that new lenders like China and Brazil will woo its clients away and dilute the control of rich nations over developing ones. It has offered an open invitation for these nascent economic powers to sign on board.
"As these new players from Asia and elsewhere begin to take more responsibility for the system ... they may begin to appreciate the importance of existing institutions," Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, a former IMF official, told a forum the Club held to celebrate its golden anniversary.
The point was echoed by numerous officials who help run the current global economic system.
"The international community needs to find ways to engage with emerging donors. It must convince them that financing to low-income countries should be shaped by coordinated international efforts, rather than independent national policies," said Agustin Carstens, deputy managing director of the IMF. (END/2006) To unsubscribe from our lists go to
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