Blair seeks to prick world conscience on Africa
By Andrew Cawthorne
LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Britain hopes to use a summit in Ethiopia this week to force an international community obsessed with Iraq and terrorism to also focus on the “scar” of Africa.
Prime Minister Tony Blair will lead a delegation to the British-sponsored Commission for Africa meeting intended to map out an African policy agenda for Britain to press when it heads the G8 and the European Union in 2005.
“There is a moral imperative to do this,” said International Development Minister Hilary Benn, who will join Blair in Addis Ababa for the two-day meeting starting Thursday.
“If we don’t tackle poverty, injustice and inequality round the world, then we’re never going to have a safe and secure world in which to live,” he told Reuters.
Viewed with skepticism by some as yet another talking-shop, the commission’s challenge is to produce specific results for the only continent to grow poorer in the last 25 years.
“Something concrete has got to be done this time. Unless the politicians actually do something about unfair trade rules, no amount of aid money is going to solve poverty,” said Helen Palmer, of British-based aid agency Oxfam.
“From now on, it’s the test time for Blair on Africa.”
The commission aims to propose action from the West on boosting aid, obtaining more debt relief and making trade rules fairer for African exporters.
“Then the priorities for Africa itself are tackling conflict and promoting good government,” Benn said.
Britain set up the commission, including senior figures from across Africa, earlier this year to highlight to problems in a continent Blair called a “scar on the conscience of the world.”
Blair, who underwent successful heart surgery Friday, will also pay a flying visit to Khartoum, where he will discuss the troubled Darfur region with the Sudanese government, Arabic- language newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.
It quoted Sudan’s minister of state for foreign affairs as saying officials would present their view of the conflict in the west of the country to the British prime minister.
2005 CRUX YEAR
Britain has vowed to use its chairmanship of the G8 bloc of industrialized nations during 2005 and the European Union in the second half of the year to make African issues a priority.
The commission is due to publish proposals in the second quarter.
“I’ve been trying very hard to give it the benefit of the doubt, but with no clear signs of what recommendations will be emerging it’s very, very hard,” said Africa expert Thomas Cargill, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
“However, Blair and (finance minister Gordon) Brown have put enough political capital into the commission that it has to deliver something substantial. What that will be, who knows?”
Cargill said the most urgent priorities were bigger investment, pressure on poorly performing governments and tighter controls on Western firms to act in a moral fashion.
The British government faces several potential obstacles to wielding influence in Africa with the commission.
Firstly, Britain is viewed with greater skepticism since its support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Secondly, the commission has a distinctly Anglophone bent, which may limit its ability to harness support from French-speaking states.
The British government insists it has led the way on helping Africa.
It is second only to the United States in aid to Darfur.
And Brown announced days ago that Britain would spend an extra 100 million pounds ($180 million) a year on debt relief for more than 30 of the world’s poorest countries.
Benn stressed that peace was an essential prerequisite to development.
“Mozambique is a really good example because there was a country scarred by conflict. They got peace, and in the last five years they’ve doubled the number of kids in primary school and they are now making progress in reducing poverty,” he said.
“It shows you need that building block of peace.”
(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Dubai)