As The Banker went to press, a broad-fronted campaign to highlight the plight of Africa was building to a climax ahead of the G8 summit starting on July 6.
The meeting of the world’s richest nations was to be a high point of 2005. This has been dubbed “the year of Africa” because the UK, the strongest force behind diplomatic efforts to help Africa, is chairing the G8 while holding the presidency of the European Union. This influential position should give the UK the power to put Africa high on the agenda.
The organisers of numerous campaigning events, including Live 8, a worldwide, multi-venue concert to highlight African poverty, were hoping to exert political pressure on G8 leaders to agree generous debt relief and increases in aid for Africa.
Predicting the outcome of the G8 summit is a tough challenge but the signs are not good. While all the talk is of helping Africa, The Banker expects the meeting to result in a politically spun agreement that sounds significant but is actually rather thin. The debt deal that Gordon Brown hammered out with his fellow finance ministers in June is less generous than the chancellor of the exchequer or his counterparts would like us to believe.
More significantly, The Banker believes any emphasis on aid and debt distracts attention from the real issue: trade reform. The World Trade Organisation will next meet in Hong Kong in December but, given French president Jacques Chirac’s belligerent unwillingness to even consider reforming European farm subsidies – which are now being debated as part of a spat over the EU budget – there is every reason to expect little or no progress.
There is a danger that the campaign to keep Africa on the agenda will lose momentum. No doubt there are many people in government, civil society and among the general public who feel strong and enduring sympathies for Africa but, for others, this is simply the cause of the moment. Without progress, the world’s attentions will move on and the political impetus to help Africa will wane.
