Blair vows to keep up pressure on aid for Africa

Feb 12, 2006 (JOHANNESBURG) — Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed to keep up pressure for international help for Africa, saying the wealthy world still needs to make good its promises to give aid, trade and peacekeeping help.

Blair, speaking in an interview broadcast on Sunday, said he was heartened by initiatives like the agreement by the Group of Eight (G8) nations last year to double aid to Africa to $50 billion (29 billion pounds) in five years and cancel a further $40 billion in debt for poor countries.

But he added that more needed to be done, particularly on reforming world trade, to boost the world’s poorest continent as it struggles with political instability, violent conflict and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

“You have to make sure that the promises people make are the promises that they actually deliver on. But I think there is an energy in the agenda for Africa that was not there a few years ago,” Blair said in an interview on South Africa’s “Carte Blanche” television news programme.

Blair, in South Africa for a summit of centre-left government leaders, has made Africa one of the centrepieces of his foreign policy and set up a Commission for Africa to develop strategies to bring about change.

He said that while increased aid was important, reforming trade rules, particularly on rich nations’ domestic agricultural subsidies, in World Trade Organisation talks could go a long way to improving Africa’s welfare.

“It is difficult but I think we will reach an agreement for a date to phase out agricultural subsidies,” Blair said, adding that other reforms, including dismantling Africa’s internal trade barriers, could also help.

RIGHT DIRECTION

Blair said he was optimistic about governance in Africa despite setbacks such as a corruption scandal rocking Kenya and allegations of human rights abuses in Ethiopia, until recently one of Britain’s favoured African governments.

“I think if you look at Africa over the last few decades the movement has been one way towards a greater democracy,” he said.

“The interesting thing about Kenya is that it is an international issue. The government is under pressure to act and people are not just shrugging their shoulders,” he added.

“I think if you take a broad view of this, I think Africa … is going in the right direction.”

Blair repeated that Britain was on track to meet a goal of devoting 0.7 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to aid for poor countries and that other initiatives, such as a plan for near universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS, were also making headway.

“You don’t just publish a document, get an agreement and then everyone just floats off,” he said. “You have got to keep at it the whole time, but the framework is there and the promises have been made so we have at least a better chance than before of making this happen.”

Blair added that the 53-member African Union was increasingly taking the lead in dealing with conflicts such as the Darfur crisis in Sudan and tension in Ivory Coast — and that the West would stand ready with logistics and peacekeepers to help ensure the continent did not slip back into chaos.

“In an interdependent world it makes no sense for us to leave the continent of Africa in the situation of being the only continent anywhere in the world of the last few decades that has gone backwards,” Blair said.

“So I think we have a huge moral obligation in countries like mine. But also, in the end, I think it is an enlightened, self-interested act.”

(Reuters)