Search for a sting in the tail in G8 follow-up
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Search for a 'sting in the tail' in G8 follow-up
By Daniel Nelson The omens are not all good for a follow-up to Tony Blair's promises on Africa, Lord Holme told a Royal African Society meeting this week. It was not clear, for example, who would be responsible for driving implementation: no Cabinet committee had been set up to do the job. But he told the meeting, Delivering the G8 Goods: Whos Driving?, that a cardinal aim of British foreign policy must be to see the G8 Gleneagles agreement implemented. A reminder of past failures was given by Judith Randel of Development Initiatives, who pointed to the still unmet 1992 commitments by rich countries to give 0.7 per cent of GDP to aid. Professor John Kirton, director of the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto, said that Gleneagles was one of the highest performing Summits since the annual meetings were initiated, but a big push from outside would be needed if declarations were to be matched by delivery. In the past three months, he noted, compliance had been reasonably good on debt and health, not bad on aid and export subsidies, and very poor on peacekeeping in Africa and on democracy and good governance. Unusually, he said, the US and Japan appeared to be acting quickest, with Russia and Canada doing very little. (Stephen Pickford, international finance director in the UK Treasury, said Russia would probably rate Africa as less important when it takes over the G8 presidency next year, which is why mechanisms must be in place before the handover.) The need for a sting in the tail a high-level device, to hold peoples feet to the fire, to ensure commitments are followed through, was also emphasised by Myles Wickstead, former head of the secretariat for Blairs Commission for Africa. The Archbishop of Cape Town, the Rev Njongonkulu Ndungane, explained one initiative, African Monitor, which he had launched. It aimed to harness civil society and grassroots voices in shaping and delivering development programmes in Africa. Another approach was suggested by Kingsley Moghalu of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, who pointed to the Funds No Go signal to several countries for poor implementation. Effective delivery by governments, he suggested, was a bigger problem than donor accountability. * A full report of the half-day meeting, which was held at Church House, Westminster, on 17 October, will be published by the Royal African Society |
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