SIAKON MEDIA

Should African Leaders Be Paraded At G8 Jams?

Saturday 16th June 2007

Last weekend, a BBC phone-in programme on the latest meeting in Germany of the group of industrialised countries known as the G8 indicated a healthy scepticism bordering on hostility for the annual jamborees held by the group’s leaders.

It is not that people begrudge the leaders of the United States, Canada, France, Japan, United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, and Germany for meeting at plush resorts to enjoy themselves; after all it is their money and should feel free to spend it anyhow they want. It is the way the G8 relates to Africa that is creating the ire in a lot of people.

Every year for the past 30 years, this group, which used to be the G7 until Russia joined in 1997, has met to deliberate on issues of mutual interest and concerns. Indeed, the origins of the group lie in the oil crisis of 1973 and the consequent global recession it triggered. Increasingly, the G8 has widened the scope of its concerns to embrace every known problem on earth and has become a major site for driving the globalisation agenda of major Western institutions and corporations.

For most of its life, the G8 did not attract much notice from ordinary Africans neither did the group concern itself specifically with Africa but in the last few years, certainly since Canada played host at Kananaskis in Alberta, the G8 has placed “African issues” such as poverty and HIV/AIDS at the centre of its consideration. This attention to Africa reached a crescendo in 2005 when the United Kingdom hosted the summit at Gleneagles in 2005. Ironically, it is the Gleneagles summit that has caused most disaffection for the G8 in African eyes.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair had famously described Africa as a “scar on the conscience of the world” at the Labour Party Conference in October 2001. He had indicated even before then that helping Africa to overcome its myriad of problems and setbacks was not only a priority but a necessary one from a Western self-interest perspective. However, 9/11 diverted the attention of most developed countries away from development to security, although Mr Blair argued that 9/11 was a pointer to the inevitable link between under-development and global insecurity.

Given that background, Mr. Blair signalled that he would use his presidency of the G8 to put Africa at the centre of the global agenda. As luck would have it, as we thought, the UK held the Presidency of the European Union at the same time. The UK prepared very seriously for the Africa-centred summit in 2005. The traditional meeting of G8 finance ministers which is held ahead of the summit took place in London on June 10 and 11 and was hosted by the UK Chancellor (Minister of Finance) Gordon Brown.

The meeting agreed on June 11 to write off the entire US$40 billion owed by 18 Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) to the World Bank, IMF and the African Development Bank. The ministers stated that an additional US$15 billion owed by 21 countries would be written off if they met their HIPC targets.

It has to be noted that the savings in terms of debts servicing to the 18 HIPC countries that won debt reprieves amounted to about US$1 billion whereas it had been estimated that nearly 50 billion would be required annually for Africa to attain the Millennium Development Goals. The UK had proposed the establishment of an International Finance Facility as a long term instrument for financing development in Africa but the plan was shot down by the US.

However, the Gleneagles summit provided the following results for Africa:
• US$50 billion pledged (some of it previously announced) in aid to developing countries by 2010, of which US$25 billion would go to Africa – on top of the ministerial level agreement to forgive debts to some HIPC countries.
• Universal access to anti-HIV drugs in Africa by 2010
• Commitment to train 20,000 peacekeeping troops for Africa in exchange for African commitments on good governance and democracy
• G8 members from the European Union commitment to a collective foreign aid target of .56 percent of GDP by 2010 and 0.7 percent by 2015.
• Commitment to reduce subsidies and tariffs that inhabit trade.

African countries made diplomatic noises in reaction to the outcome of Gleneagles, though in private most of them must have been seething with disappointment. It is true that 2005 was perhaps the most productive for Africa in G8 history but the expectation had reached fever pitch and therefore the outcome was an inevitable downer. Another reason for disappointment was that money was repackaged old commitment and the new commitments were rather vague or short on implementation.
Even in 2005, civil society voices were not only in disappointment at the paltry offers but in suspicion that even the meagre commitments would not be honoured. And so it proved to be, which is why there is such profound disenchantment with the G8. For example, there has been no substantial increase in aid inflows and no dramatic debt cancellation since the 2005 G8 raised expectations that both would happen.

Perhaps an even bigger letdown has been in the peace and security arena where Africa had every right to expect a massive dividend in response to its own housecleaning exercise. Financial support for African troop training is inadequate and has not led to an enhanced capacity to keep peace, most notably in Sudan’s Darfur region where only 7000 AU keepers patrol a territory which is bigger than France. There are several other commitments made in 2005 at Gleneagles that have either not been fulfilled or watered down beyond recognition.

This is the background to the undisguised anger that many felt that once again the G8, this time meeting in Germany had claimed to be addressing African concerns when earlier promises had been broken. But I think what breaks African hearts is the spectre of our leaders appearing bowl in hand before this rich club and coming away with nothing. Ghana’s own President Agyekum Kufuor has been a G8 regular and is supposed to pack a lot of clout in those hallowed circles. 

It is probably a good idea for our leaders to meet their counterparts from other parts of the world to discuss important global events. But some experts have argued that the G8 is not the right multilateral space for discussing Africa’s development; it is an informal body that chooses who should attend its party.

We all know a poor guest at a rich person’s party has to accept patronising humiliation with a forced smile, which is exactly the attitude our leaders display at G8 summits. They smile through irrelevant lectures on good governance and human rights, especially coming from the US which has made Guantanamo a byword for degrading and inhuman treatment of human captives. They smile through pledges they know will never materialise.

It is this negro subservience that is grating most of our people, and people are asking whether it is wise for our leaders to continue providing this grotesque side show at G8 meetings.

gapenteng@hotmail.com

Source: Daily Graphic

Kongo (UE), July 10, GNA - Brother Francis Sebo, a Presentation Brother with the Catholic Church, has blamed Africa's poverty on greed and selfishness on the part some leaders and well-to-do people.

He said majority of people, who are well to do, tended to forget about the development of their fellow individuals, their community and their countries.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency at Kongo in the Upper East Region on Saturday, Brother Sebo, a Liberian, said besides the rich resources Africa has, Africans were endowed with smart brains.

He noted that all these potentials could have been used to develop the continent to prevent people from hunger and poverty.

Presentation Brothers are a congregation of Catholic men, who consecrate their lives to the education of youth and conduct schools and colleges in various parts of the world. They are not priests and do not marry.    

Brother Sebo said: "Africans are held hostage by their own attitudes. Africans can on their own eradicate poverty and hunger if attitudinal changes are made".

He called on well-resourced Africans especially those in the Diaspora to contribute to the development of their respective communities and countries.

"Why should an African child go hungry? We have all the resources", he said.

Brother Sebo advised African leaders not to depend solely on developed countries and said what was very crucial for African countries, was for them to seek technical know-how from the developed countries to build on their own.

He stressed on the need for philanthropists to focus on education by complementing governments' efforts saying education is a tool that could be used to break the chain of poverty...

Brother Sebo said he was able to sponsor 45 students in the Talensi-Nabdam Districts through money he inherited from his father and other proceeds from families and friends in the United States and Europe.

He indicated that plans were far advanced to expand the sponsorship scheme to include brilliant and needy students at the Senior High Schools and the tertiary level.

GNA