African leaders to ask G8 to honour pledges
Written by Randall Palmer and Paolo Biondi
Friday, July 10, 2009 4:25:04 PM
L'AQUILA, Italy (Reuters) - Africa takes centre stage at the Group of Eight summit on Friday, with wealthy nations eager to reassure critics they will honour past aid pledges and approve a new $15 billion agriculture programme.
After two days of talks focused on the economic crisis, trade and global warming, the final day of the G8 gathering in Italy will concentrate on the problems facing the world's poorest nations.
Development of Africa has become an important item on G8 agendas following promises by world leaders at Gleneagles in 2005 to increase annual aid levels by $50 billion by 2010, half of which was meant to go to African countries.
However, aid organisations say some capitals have gone back on their word, especially this year's G8 host Italy, and African heads of state said they would voice their concerns.
"The key message for us is to ask the G8 to live up to their commitments," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Reuters this week before flying to Italy for the half-day meeting.
The l'Aquila summit has produced chequered results, making only limited progress in crucial climate talks following the refusal by major developing nations to sign up to the goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
"There is a bit of frustration because one would like to convince everyone about everything and obtain all the results straight way, but things are progressing," French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters on Thursday night.
Besides Meles, the leaders of Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa joined their G8 counterparts on Friday to discuss food security and farming, and to push their demand for compensation for the ravages of climate change.
Rich nations were expected to use the meeting to announce spending of $15 billion over three years to boost agricultural investment in poorer countries, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters.
The text did not make clear whether it was all new funds, nor did it give details of individual countries' contributions, although the United States, Japan and the European Union were expected to step in with around $3 billion each.
The focus on agricultural investments reflects a U.S.-led shift away from emergency aid assistance towards longer-term strategies to try to make communities more self-sufficient.
But the $15 billion fund over three years compares unfavourably with $13.4 billion which the G8 says it disbursed between January 2008 and July 2009 for global food security.
British charity ActionAid warned in a report last week that one billion people went hungry in the world, saying decisions at the G8 gathering could "literally make the difference between life and death for millions in the developing world".
Japan and the European Union were also going to champion a code of conduct to promote responsible international investments in agriculture in the face of growing farmland acquisition or "land grabs" in emerging nations.
The summit wraps up at lunch time and will be followed by a flurry of bilateral meetings that stretch long into the day.
U.S. President Barack Obama will return to Rome for a meeting with Pope Benedict, who earlier this week called for a re-think of the way the world economy was run.
Labels: G8, MELES ZENAWI
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Obama, Gaddafi shake hands at G8 dinner
Written by Reuters
Friday, July 10, 2009 4:15:18 PM
L'AQUILA, Italy (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi met his first U.S. president on Thursday, shaking hands with Barack Obama and sitting just one place away from him at a dinner for world leaders at a G8 summit in Italy.
The two leaders were photographed greeting each other and television images later showed Obama and Gaddafi -- who wore ruby red- and gold-flecked robes and hat -- separated only by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the dinner table.
Strained for many years over Libyan support for groups Washington considers terrorist, U.S.-Libyan ties have thawed in recent years. But there is still mistrust on both sides and relations are businesslike at best.
The United States and Libya resumed diplomatic ties in 2004 after a break lasting more than two decades. The United States designated Libya a "state sponsor of terrorism" in 1979, and President Ronald Reagan ordered Libyan assets in the United States frozen in January 1986.
Relations sank further when the United States blamed Libya for the deadly bombing of a Berlin disco frequented by U.S. military personnel. U.S. aircraft bombed Tripoli, Benghazi and Gaddafi's home in April 1986, killing his adopted infant daughter.
Two years, later Libya was blamed for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland that killed 270 people. Libya eventually handed over two suspects to stand trial in the Netherlands.
In 2003, Libya reached a political agreement with the United States and Britain to accept responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay about $2.7 billion in victims' compensation.
Later that year, Libya announced it was abandoning its weapons of mass destruction programs. President George W. Bush formally ended a U.S. trade embargo against Tripoli in 2004, and Libya declared an end to confrontation with the United States in 2008.
Gaddafi, who President Reagan once called the "mad dog of the Middle East," received the then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Libya last year and Bush spoke to him on the telephone.
The famously eccentric leader raised eyebrows earlier in the day when he hopped out of his white limousine for a 15-minute stroll on the highway from Rome to the summit site of L'Aquila, according to Italian news agencies.
This is Gaddafi's second trip to Libya's former colonial ruler Italy in a month. He arrived last month wearing the photo of a colonial-era Libyan resistance hero pinned to his chest.
The Libyan leader, who is at the G8 summit in his role as African Union chairman, is staying in a bedouin tent pitched on a soccer field in L'Aquila's police barracks, just a few kilometres away from less-opulent tents for those left homeless by an April earthquake.
Labels: BARACK OBAMA, G8, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI
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G8 welcomes developing states, eyes climate, trade
Written by Phil Stewart and Matt Falloon
Thursday, July 09, 2009 4:58:27 PM
L'AQUILA, Italy (Reuters) - Leaders of the world's richest and main developing nations meet on Thursday to try to find common ground on global warming and international trade, with the poorer countries seeking concessions.
U.S. President Barack Obama will chair the climate discussions, but hopes of agreeing ambitious goals have faded after China and India rejected demands to halve the emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.
The talks come on the second of a three-day Group of Eight summit, with discussions broadened to include the heads of new economic powerhouses in recognition that the world's problems cannot no longer be dealt with by an elite few.
The fragile state of the global economy dominated the first day of the annual G8 summit, with the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia acknowledging that were still significant risks to financial stability.
They also agreed to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Farenheit) and pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by between 50 and 80 percent by mid-century.
The 17-member Major Economies Forum (MEF), which groups the G8 plus big developing nations, also looks set to embrace the 2 Celsius goal on Thursday, but is balking at further commitments ahead of a decisive U.N. climate conference in December.
Prospects of progress could be further hampered by the absence of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who withdrew from talks to attend to ethnic clashes in China's northwest that have killed 156 people and wounded over a thousand.
Indian negotiators said developing countries first wanted to see rich nation plans to provide financing to help them cope with ever more floods, heatwaves, storms and rising sea levels.
Temperatures have already risen by about 0.7 Celsius since the start of the Industrial Revolution ushered in widespread burning of fossil fuels, and Italy's prime minister said everyone should share the burden of tackling the problem.
"It would not be productive if European countries, Japan, the United States and Canada accepted cuts that are economically damaging while more than 5 billion people in other countries carried on as before," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.
Broader economic concerns will also be high on the agenda on Thursday, with emerging nations complaining that they are suffering heavily from a crisis that was not of their making.
China, India and Brazil have all questioned whether the world should start seeking a new global reserve currency as an alternative to the dollar. They have said they may raise this on Thursday after discussing it amongst themselves on Wednesday.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told reporters developing economies in the so-called "G5" had suggested the use of alternative currencies to settle trade among themselves.
The debate is highly sensitive in financial markets, which are wary of risks to U.S. asset values, and the issue is unlikely to progress very far in L'Aquila.
However, a breakthrough on trade did look within reach.
Diplomats say the G8 and G5 should agree to conclude the stalled Doha round of trade talks in 2010. Launched in 2001 to help poor countries prosper, they have stumbled on proposed tariff and subsidy cuts.
However, a breakthrough on trade did look within reach.
Diplomats say the G8 and G5 should agree to conclude the stalled Doha round of trade talks in 2010. Launched in 2001 to help poor countries prosper, they have stumbled on proposed tariff and subsidy cuts.
"We commit to reach a rapid, ambitious, balanced and comprehensive conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda," the G8 said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
The G5 issued their own statement, saying they was committed to try to address "any outstanding problems" on trade talks and added the successful conclusion of Doha would provide "a major stimulus to the restoration of confidence in world markets".
But they also called on the world's richest nations to tear down trade barriers and restore credit to the poorest countries
Labels: BARACK OBAMA, G8
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G8: The real crisis is not in Zimbabwe
By Political and Features Editor Mabasa Sasa
IN 1899, Rudyard Kipling, probably the best known of Britain’s imperial poets, penned an ode titled "The White Man’s Burden" in which he implored the United States of America to join Britain in fully embarking on imperialist wars of conquest and extolled the "virtues" of colonialism. The publication of the poem coincided with the start of the Philippine-American War and the ratification of a treaty in the US Senate that seized territories from Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba and the Philippines.
Theodore Roosevelt, a senior navy officer and soon to be president of the US, sent a copy of the poem to a friend of his, Senator Henry Lodge, with a note that read it was "rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view".
America subsequently went on an imperial rampage that today is encapsulated in the horror of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over 100 years later, it would not be surprising if one were to find that former British prime minister Tony Blair and his equally inept protégé Gordon Brown also sent a copy of this poem to George W. Bush to rope him into their modern wars of conquest — both economic and military.
The recent decision by the G8 to take what they term "financial measures" against Zimbabwe in the face of not only well-tempered advice but also stringent opposition not to do so, is but just another manifestation of the continued dominance of Rudyard Kipling’s mentality in the West today.
Meeting in Japan, Britain, it’s adopted cousin in the imperial agenda the US, and their allies decided — while sitting as a private club that has no international statutory authority — that "financial measures" should be put in place until Morgan Tsvangirai is unconstitutionally declared head of state in Zimbabwe.
The sheer arrogance of the whole move is what is quite astounding.
Apart from the fact that Zimbabwe has a sovereign constitutional process pertaining to elections borne out of negotiations between Zanu-PF and the opposition that legitimately elected President Mugabe into office, the manner in which the African contingent at the summit was ignored raises bile.
The G8 invited Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania to Japan and these seven countries impressed upon them that sanctions, by any name, were not the best means of engaging Zimbabwe.
This was in line with a resolution passed by the African Union at its own summit in Egypt earlier on indicating that the continent was rallying behind President Mbeki’s mediation efforts.
This is a mediation effort that has been doubly endorsed — by Sadc and now by the AU.
So what is it that makes eight countries, all thousands of miles away from Zimbabwe, decide that Africa does not know what it wants and that they alone have the right to decide which route a sovereign nation should take?
It is a paternalistic attitude harking back to Kipling’s days when the white world was barbaric and brazen enough to believe that they had a duty to help poor, ignorant non-whites because they did not have the good sense to know what was good for them.
And just like in Kipling’s days, it is not a simple matter of cultural and political imperialism, but is indeed one of the faces of neo-colonial intervention in the affairs of a nation that has a blood-won right to be called independent.
The Western media have typically latched onto the G8 resolution as a victory over the maniac Mugabe who has the temerity to declare that resources in Zimbabwe should be used for the development of Zimbabwe and the people of Zimbabwe by the people of Zimbabwe.
The uninformed targets of the Western media’s Kiplingesque reportage of Zimbabwe, as well as the rest of the Third World, genuinely believe right now that they are helping this country by passing arrogant G8 resolutions.
For them, they have a philanthropic, God-given commission to haul helpless Zimbabweans out of the bondage President Mugabe has put them in by giving them land and pushing for indigenous ownership of resources.
What emerges from this mindset is what President Mugabe himself referred to when addressing the UN General Assembly in 2006 as a "new religious-political order where Bush is God and Blair is his only prophet".
In 2005 Mick Hume (Africa: A Stage for Political Poseurs) tried to explain the resurgence of this white-man’s-burden mentality as a reaction to a failure by the West to deal with their own problems at home and trying to immerse themselves in other people’s issues as a futile face-saving gesture.
And this partly explains the feverish fixation with Zimbabwe.
After being imposed as prime minister, Gordon Brown faces double massacre from Middle Eastern bullets in his foreign policy and from ballots back home.
He cannot win an election at home, he cannot win in the Middle East and galled by the fact that President Mugabe has overwhelmingly won an election, he perhaps thinks that he can win through the G8.
The real crisis for the dour and doughy Brown is not in Zimbabwe but is in the UK.
The real crisis for Bush is not in Zimbabwe but in the US where disenchantment with the Middle East imperial wars has gained common currency and people are starting to question why prisoners are being detained for years at Guantanamo (an imperial territory stolen from Cuba) without trial.
The real crisis for Sarkozy is not in Zimbabwe but in France where his wife leaves him and comes back to the matrimonial bed at will.
In this regard Hume was right: Africa, in particular Zimbabwe, has provided the West with a stage on which they can grandstand.
But it also goes beyond mere grandstanding. There are vital issues at stake that could forever rattle global economic geo-political relations.
After grandstanding so much about Zimbabwe, there is no way the West can humbly accept defeat and go home to wipe bloody noses without setting a "bad" precedent for downtrodden people across the globe.
For if little Zimbabwe can tell G8 countries where to stuff their words, then what will other countries with even more mineral resources than ours do?
If Zimbabwe can get away with land reforms, how will America stop Iran from attaining nuclear energy? How will they stop Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa et al from nationalising Latin America?
That is why the G8 cannot listen to what Africa says about Zimbabwe.
The West stands to lose a lot from failing to impose its will over and above that of Africa and hence we even see them unashamedly asking the United Nations to overturn the domestic constitutional process that resulted in June 27, its crushing result and its permanence.
Britain and its allies cannot afford to give dialogue a chance and they will thus proceed to try and legitimise their illegal sanctions through the offices of the UN.
They fear that if dialogue takes place and follows an almost similar trajectory to that seen last year that culminated in the co-sponsored Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment) Act Number 18 they will lose even the latitude to grandstand here.
Their continued meddling in Zimbabwe’s affairs relies on polarisation and the accompanying absence of holistic dialogue between Zimbabweans.
The G8 resolution is an attempt to perpetuate division in Zimbabwe.
They have this hope that the threat of sanctions will embolden the opposition not to do the right thing and sit at a negotiating table with Zanu-PF in the misguided, but very cynical, belief that the more Zimbabweans suffer, the more likely they are to sell their birthright.
As for the African continent, the behaviour of the G8 should show them that the West cares not one iota what they think or feel and to be used in Brown and Bush’s modern Kipling-induced attacks on Zimbabwe is to agree to be vassal states forever.
Charles Taylor put it aptly when he was handed over to Europeans to face charges of various crimes against humanity.
Few will sympathise with Taylor after fomenting the kind of trouble he did in West Africa, but that does not mean to say he was a total idiot.
Taylor was used by the United States but when the fun of raping West Africa was over, they threw him aside like the latex sheet he allowed himself to become.
In a belated "aha moment", he issued a stark warning to the rest of the continent: "Today it’s Taylor, tomorrow it’s you."
Today the G8 is passing resolutions on Zimbabwe, tomorrow . . . who knows?
Labels: G8, SANCTIONS
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Russia could block Zimbabwe sanctions
Ralph Mutema
Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:11:00 +0000
G8 leaders. According to the U.K.'s Telegraph newspaper, Gordon Brown "used a graphic image of a man beaten to death in Zimbabwe to rally world leaders behind imposing new sanctions on President Robert Mugabe's regime."
THE world’s leading industrial nations who recently met in Japan have pledged additional measures against President Robert Mugabe after calling the June 27 election illegitimate, but all of them did not agree on the way forward.
In a joint statement, the G8 leaders condemned the way the election had proceeded saying: "We do not accept the legitimacy of any government that does not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people."
The statement further said, "We deplore the fact that the Zimbabwean authorities pressed ahead with the presidential election despite the absence of appropriate conditions for free and fair voting as a result of their systematic violence, obstruction and intimidation."
The leaders were unanimous in their desire to punish those who intimidated voters and perpetrated violence in the country
"We will take further steps, inter alia introducing financial and other measures against those individuals responsible for the violence," the statement said further
They also unanimously agreed to ask the United Nations to appoint a special envoy to report on Zimbabwe's humanitarian and human rights situation.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had lobbied for a stronger statement to come out of the G8 summit condemning the government of President Robert Mugabe. He had wanted the group to declare President Mugabe illegitimate.
Speaking after the Summit, Brown said, "This is the strongest possible statement. It shows the unanimity of the whole international community, reflecting the outrage people feel about the violence and the intimidation and the illegitimate holding of power by the Mugabe government."
Despite Brown’s strong words the statement failed to use the term sanctions, as the British PM had intended
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel together with the United States had indicated that they would support a UN resolution imposing wider sanctions on President Mugabe and his government.
However, that call was not heeded by Russia which, although it signed the G8 statement on Zimbabwe concluded that the country’s leaders do not believe that in this case sanctions were an effective tool to improve the situation.
Moscow's Ambassador to the U.N. called the sanctions push excessive and suggested indicating that they could block a U.N. Security Council resolution to that effect.
"We should make it clear that the Security Council is not about to enter into the whole realm of mediating elections, or judging elections," Vitali Churkin, Russia's UN representative, said.
South Africa, also a council member, repeated its opposition to the proposed UN sanctions, but does not hold veto power in the organ.
Russian official Alexander Pankin twas quoted by DPA news agency as saying negotiations are a means of solving the crisis in Zimbabwe ― a course of action supported by the African Union.
President Mugabe’s government called the G8 statement racist and said it was an insult to African leaders.
"They want to undermine the African Union and [South African] President Mbeki's [mediation] efforts because they are racist, because they think only white people think better," said the Deputy Information Minister, Bright Matonga. "It's an insult to African leaders."
Labels: G8, RUSSIA, SANCTIONS, ZIMBABWE
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(HERALD) Govt raps G8 sanctions call
Govt raps G8 sanctions call
Herald Reporter
THE Group of Eight yesterday ignored African and Russian calls not to impose more sanctions on Zimbabwe and said they would put in place "financial measures" against the country in a move that has been described by Government as smacking of "international racism". The G8 resolution made in Japan yesterday claimed Zimbabwe’s Government was "illegitimate" despite the fact that President Mugabe polled over two million votes in the June 27 presidential run-off election against MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s less than 250 000 votes.
Though they avoided the word sanctions in their statement on Zimbabwe, they referred to "financial measures", and vowed to press the United Nations to take action against the country. "We will take further steps, inter alia introducing financial and other measures against those individuals responsible for the violence," they said.
They added that they wanted Government to "work with the opposition", albeit on the basis of the March 29 harmonised elections that did not produce a winner in the presidential race. The G8 resolution also seeks to subvert South African President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation between Zimbabwe’s main political parties by imposing another mediator — who they called a special UN envoy — in the inter-party talks.
The Minister of Information and Publicity, Cde Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, yesterday slammed the decision as an attempt to override the will of the people who voted on June 27, as well as that of African heads of state who endorsed President Mbeki’s mediation at last week’s African Union Summit held in Egypt.
"The G8 has refused to listen to Africa. A number of African countries have tried to talk to them and make them understand the African Union’s position on Zimbabwe but they have disregarded it all.
"African leaders who were invited to the G8 Summit, such as President (Abdoulaye) Wade of Senegal and President (Jakaya) Kikwete of Tanzania, said they could not support sanctions but they (the G8) have gone ahead and passed a resolution calling for sanctions at the UN.
"For them to say that Zimbabwe’s Government and President Mugabe’s election are not legitimate is an attempt to impose a government on the people of Zimbabwe against their will. Our Constitution required that we hold a run-off and we did that accordingly. Morgan Tsvangirai probably did not understand what a run-off was and instead ran off to the Dutch Embassy.
"But the people went out and voted, including for Tsvangirai, and President Mugabe won and has been sworn in as the Head of State," hesaid. "As such," Cde Ndlovu said, "the G8 resolution is ultimately of no consequence. Nowhere in international law is there provision for a group of countries to sit down as a private club and decide the legitimacy of governments in sovereign states. This is international racism."
On the matter of President Mbeki’s mediation, Cde Ndlovu said Zimbabwe would proceed with the South African leader’s facilitation as resolved by the AU and Sadc. "This issue is a non-starter. Why do they want to impose another mediator? President Mbeki has proved his mettle as an African statesman par excellence and so we will follow the AU and Sadc position on this." At the AU Summit in Egypt, African heads of state resolved that President Mbeki should continue with his mediation efforts without unnecessary meddling from outsiders. Seven leaders from the continent invited to the G8 Summit had earlier tried to impress on the United States, Britain and their allies that sanctions would not help Zimbabwe in any way. President Wade of Senegal yesterday held meetings with some G8 leaders in attempt to make them understand Africa’s position. He told AFP yesterday that he had asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in separate meetings for the G8 leaders at least to delay sanctions if they insist on imposing them to allow for dialogue among Zimbabwean political parties. Earlier, Presidents Mbeki and Kikwete had also done the same thing but their calls were ignored. Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said elements of the US draft were "quite excessive" and clearly "in conflict with the notion of sovereignty" of a UN member state. He was quoted by AFP questioning whether Zimbabwe’s case amounted to a threat to international peace and security. The other African countries represented at the G8 Summit were Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria, who said sanctions "may lead to internal conflict in Zimbabwe". The US and its allies pushed through the resolution as a means of putting pressure on the UN Security Council to also slap sanctions on Zimbabwe. The US introduced a draft resolution calling for sanctions before the Security Council that would then legitimise the economic embargo America already has in place against the country. The Security Council is expected to debate the draft this week. In South Africa, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband received a cool response from his South African counterpart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to his calls for sanctions against Zimbabwe as the pair held talks yesterday. Dlamini-Zuma said at a joint Press conference that Pretoria saw talks between Zimbabwe’s ruling party and the opposition as the best way to resolve the country’s problems. She expressed little enthusiasm for sanctions. "Our leaders are currently meeting in Japan at the G8 meeting and they have expressed reservations on sanctions and so we will take if from there," she said. "South Africa has always maintained that an inclusive government that will reflect the diversity and the will of the people" was the best way to tackle the country’s problems, she added. The G8 is comprised of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US.
Labels: ELECTIONS, G8, SANCTIONS, ZIMBABWE
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Reasons to be skeptical
By Editor
Saturday June 09, 2007 [04:00]
The G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, had awakened great expectations. We wonder if these expectations have been met by the promises made in Heiligendamm. The G-8 has pledged to spend $60 billion to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa. This may sound a big sum of money and a very big promise.
But we know that the fight against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa needs far more resources than this. The new money announced in Heiligendamm is important in the fight against AIDS, but it should be seen for what it is - a small step when we need giant leaps.
It is very clear that the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm has let the goal of halving world poverty slip out of reach. They have not delivered a concrete plan for tackling the crushing levels of African poverty. Millions of African children will continue to die for lack of free health care.
We also know that these promises or pledges are merely promises and pledges; they are not always met or fulfilled. They have become what our people commonly refer to as Leopards Hill Cemetery promises. They promise to turn our night into day but when it comes to doing, they leave us in permanent darkness.
Every little concession, every little aid we have gotten from them has come after a long and gruelling struggle; they hardly give us anything graciously. It takes solidarity struggles by the most progressive people in their countries for them to do any little thing for us. This is not the first time the G-8 has made promises to us which they have not fulfilled.
Despite the hopes raised in Heiligendamm, there is good reason to remain sceptical; year after year, promises have been empty, broken, or full of spin and the practices of many of these countries have been hypocritical. But we can’t stop being hopeful given the crisis threatening the world today; given the need for the G-8 to conclusively attend to the profound political and economic crisis threatening the world.
We have reasons to be hopeful because this summit galvanised many campaigners fighting global poverty, environmental degradation and many other problems facing our world today. We saw thousands of protesters in Heiligendamm protesting against the G-8’s poor record on such issues as these nations have been able to greatly influence international policies to their advantage, often at the expense of our poor countries.
Despite the G-8 countries’ sorry record on these issues, there is need to put more pressure on these governments to honour their promises.
There is no doubt that if these leaders, the leaders of the G-8 countries, want to, they can make their promises into real and effective action. Of course we know that these leaders are not always accountable to the general public’s wishes, and they may continue to seemingly defer to the interest of big business, which is what has characterised these nations in the past. However, it is our duty to make them honour their promises. The 2005 G-8 summit promised a lot of debt relief, which made headline news. But we know that most of it was spin and hype, which did not make the headline news.
The G-8 countries have continued, to varying degrees, with their excessive, unfair, even hypocritical farm subsidies. The world’s richest countries spent just over $1 billion for the year 2005 on aid for agriculture in poor countries, and just under $1 billion each day of that year for various subsidies of agriculture overproduction at home – a less appropriate ordering of priorities is difficult to imagine.
Furthermore, the systematic undermining of African economies, mostly by the rich G-8 nations, has gone on to such effect that if sub-Saharan Africa enjoyed today the same share of world exports as it did in 1980, the foreign exchange gain would represent about eight times the aid it received in 2003. This is what experts are telling us, this is what experts are saying.
There is need for all the progressive people of the world to put pressure on the G-8 countries to deliver on their promises. Yes, there are things the G-8 countries have legitimately asked us to do. For instance, they have stressed the need for us to curb corruption and improve governance. We don’t think our people can be opposed to fighting corruption and improving good governance. Most of our people are committed to delivering on these issues; they are aware of their obligations. But we also need help on this score because part of the corruption our countries experience is perpetrated by their own people and transnational corporations.
Aid is needed in Africa to support social infrastructure, health and education. We really need bigger reforms to make Africa more attractive to investment and integrate it in a beneficial way into the world economy. We shouldn’t forget that there are many promises or pledges that were made in Gleneagles that are yet to be fulfilled. For instance, commitments to a sustained boost to aid, and the pledge to work towards a free trade deal that would remove tariffs on African exports to developed countries have still not materialised.
We need better trade deals for Africa. We should press for an increased share of free trade for our poor countries. But there is need to look at why the G-8 have not fulfilled the previous commitments and they should not be let off the hook and continue to make more empty promises. This will need a strong international campaign by all men and women of goodwill.
Labels: EDITORIAL, G8, TIZ
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G8 countries pledge to spend $60bn on Africa
By Kabanda Chulu and Inonge Noyoo
Saturday June 09, 2007 [04:00]
THE Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries has pledged to spend US$ 60 billion to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa. But civil society organisations (CSOs) and Aid agencies have said the G8 should not be let off the hook to continue making empty promises. And Transparency International's African and G8 chapters have asked the G8 countries to stop the supply side of corruption.
According to a statement released by the German Ministry of Development yesterday, the world leaders turned their attention to Africa on the final day of the summit by committing US$ 60 billion of which the United States of America would account for half of the total amount.
It stated that the G8 have agreed to make up the US$ 500 million shortfall in this year’s spending for education in Africa and they also resolved to keep Africa at the top of the agenda at the G8 summit to be held in Japan next year.
However, some CSOs and aid agencies said much of the money had already been announced and fell short of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals targets.
Stop AIDS Campaign coordinator Steve Cockburn stated that the G8 should do more to meet the commitments they made at their 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.
“While lives will be saved with more money for AIDS, this represents a cap on ambition that will ultimately cost millions more lives,” said Cockburn.
And Catholic Commission for Justice, Peace and Development (CCJDP) Zambia social and economics project manager Mulima Akapelwa stated that the G8 had not lived up to the promises made in 2005.
“We should be looking at why the G8 have not fulfilled the previous commitments rather than allowing them off the hook to make more empty promises but this is not to say that some progress has not been made since the Gleneagles summit, for instance, the writing off the debt of 18 African countries has allowed Zambia to expand free health care in rural areas,” stated AKapelwa. “However, other commitments like a sustained boost to aid and the pledge to work towards a free trade deal that will remove tariffs on African exports to developed countries have still not materialised.”
And the Transparency International chapters in a statement at the G8 summit in Germany on Wednesday, asked leaders of the G8 nations to act on specific commitments to better governance and to fight corruption in and for Africa.
They stated that the G8 must not make itself complicit.
“The G8 also has a special responsibility to ensure that its policies and the behaviour of its companies do not make it complicit in corruption, which undermines the best efforts of African countries to fight corruption and improve governance,” read the statement.
“In this spirit, we call on the G8 to make good on their many promises to stem the supply side of bribery, to ensure that G8-based multinationals can no longer bribe with impunity when doing business in Africa.”
The chapters also urged the G8 to refuse safe haven and help recover stolen monies by ensuring that their financial markets and institutions were not complicit in managing the proceeds of corruption.
“This entails cooperating with investigators in African countries to trace, freeze and return stolen assets.
Transparency International reminded the G8 leaders of their commitments to anti-corruption and better governance under the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), the African Union (AU) Anti-Corruption Convention and the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
“The G8 and International Financial Institutions must ensure African leaders are not hampered in decision-making power over their own economies, good governance initiatives and anti-corruption efforts,” read the statement.
“We ask that the governments of the G8 bear in mind that all efforts towards greater well-being and economic justice for the poorest - and even the challenges of climate change - will be unmanageable without good governance and markets free of corruption.”
The statement was adopted on May 26, 2007 by Transparency International- ‘s national chapters in Africa: Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Labels: G8, TIZ
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