Panel To Monitor Commitments To Africa
British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged Monday that the key Group of Eight (G8 – de førende industrilandes) commitments to help Africa have not been met, and said he appointed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to lead a panel monitoring progress toward the goals, reports the World Bank press review Tuesday.
Blair said in a speech in London that the Africa Progress Panel will be funded by Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates. International charities on Monday welcomed the formation of the progress panel, but urged members to hold the G8 to account to ensure it delivers on its promises.
Blair, who has called the situation in Africa a “stain” (plet/skamplet) on the conscience of the worlds rich nations, hopes the panel, will “maintain the international political profile of Africa achieved in 2005”.
The Africa Progress Panel will produce an annual report for the G8, UN and the Africa Partnership Forum – an existing body tasked with monitoring progress in the continent. The panels members are still being finalized, but among them will be Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Peter Eigen, the German founder of the global anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International.
Blair said on Monday the G8 had failed to make progress on some of last years commitments to end global poverty, particularly on world trade. He singled out trade as his main disappointment in the 2005 agenda but said there was still a chance for a breakthrough.
Blair set a one-year deadline for a new global deal on climate change as he warned that time was running out to find a way of limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
Blair used a report on the progress made since last summers Gleneagles summit to say that the international community could not afford to spend the five years it took to finalize the Kyoto agreement, under which some developed countries pledged action on global warming.
Blair used his speech to call on campaigners to maintain the pressure generated in the run-up to the Gleneagles summit.
He said that the budget of the Department for International Development (DfID – det britiske Danida) for education would increase to one billion british pounds a year by 2010, and promised efforts to improve secondary and higher education as more children receive primary education.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
