frica, Palestine, agriculture subsidies and inevitably terrorism were at the heart of the final document signed by the G8 leaders, marred by yesterday’s terror attack in London. Africa remained the focal point, as Blair had wanted. Africa, as the world’s poorest continent, who was represented by the African Union president Obasanjo, emerges from the summit with yet another promise.
This time, the rich countries have agreed to increase contributions by 2010, to reach the highpoint in 2015, when the Millennium goals will be evaluated. Point 27 of the final document in Gleneagles also allots an extra $25 billion to Africa for development, more than double the 2004 amount; Point 28 clarifies that all LDC’s including African ones, will be able to count on $50 billion/year in aid, double last year’s amount.
The funds will be used to reduce the foreign debt of all African countries and to cancel that of the 16 poorest, as stipulated in point 29. The ambitious objective is tied to OECD estimates suggesting an economic growth rate of 2% in rich countries over the next 5 years. This is an optimistic estimate given the unending rise in the price of crude oil and the danger of terrorism that some financial markets “experts” might slow or strike the long awaited economic recovery.
The main financiers for Africa’s recovery will be Europe and United States, where the EU countries have promised to allot 0.56% of their GDP up to 2010, reaching the long advocated amount of 0.7% by 2015. The US issued big words saying it would do even better than that, while Mosow promised to cancel bilateral debt contracted by many African countries with Russia and the former Soviet Union. Every rich country will then be able to identify alternative sources to raise contributions in favor of Africa starting with the French project to tax, ad- hoc, airline tickets. Rich countries, finally, will also finance the formation of 20,000 African peacekeepers to deploy wherever stabilization or peace maintenance is needed.
On the subject of Palestine, the national Palestinian Authority (PNA) will receive $3 billion to use to develop Palestine, which the G8 expect to see evolving as a sovereign state living side by side with its neighbor Israel – as Blair said. In terms of Agricultural Subsidies, the final G8 document suggests the elimination of all subsidies for the export of agricultural products by a ‘credible’ date that some believe to be 2010.
The European concession to the US politics of agricultural subsidies might be interpreted as the consequence of the historic recognition by Washington that there is a connection between human activity and climate change. The acceptance of this report represents the only step forward of the G8 in terms of the environment, which for the rest will have to wait for another meeting next November 1 where alternative fuels to reduce emissions and dependence on crude oil will be the main topics.
Environmentalists were perplexed by the G8 Summit’s efforts on environment, as they had expected an immediate and determined commitment by the superpowers starting with the USA. Finally, terrorism. The G8 leaders and their “guests” signed a declaration condemning every form of terrorism. Next year the G8 will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia where another set of wonderful promises will be delivered.
(From MISNA)