British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday challenged the world to help end the poverty, conflict and disease plaguing Africa, as he launched a major international report on how to ease the continents woes, reports the World Bank press review.
– There can be no excuse, no defense, no justification for the plight of millions of our fellow beings in Africa today. There should be nothing that stands in our way of changing it. That is the simple message from the report published today, said Blair, unveiling the findings of his Africa Commission.
The 400-page report calls on the international community to immediately double foreign aid to Africa to 50 billion US dollar (ca. 280 milliarder DKR) and make fighting AIDS a priority. It sets 100 percent debt cancellation as a goal and urges rich nations to drop trade barriers that hurt poor countries.
It also says African leaders must move faster toward democracy, stamp out corruption and take other steps to improve how their countries are run.
Blair hopes the report will be embraced around the world as a blueprint for an African renaissance. He has made helping Africa a key priority for Britains presidencies of both the powerful Group of Eight wealthiest nations and the European Union this year.
The analysis, described as “blisteringly honest” in the report, is designed to rouse moral indignation across the west, but also respond to the anger within Africa at the behavior of some of its “kleptocratic leaders”.
The emphasis on governance came from the African commissioners. The report warns: “Corruption is systemic in much of Africa today. Corruption has a corrosive effect on efforts to improve governance, yet improved governance is essential to reduce scope for corruption.”
The report, welcomed by aid agencies, says: “The amount stolen and now held in foreign bank accounts is equivalent to more than half the continents external debt.” It also reveals no G8 nation has signed the UN anti-corruption convention, committing the west to repatriate stolen funds.
– It is pointless for the developed world to bemoan African corruption when it does not take the measures needed to counter it, the report states.
The 17-person Commission also said oil and mining companies that operate in Africa must be more open about their financial transactions on the continent, and should be barred from receiving government subsidies if they are found to have offered bribes to public officials.
– Foreign bank must be obliged by law to inform on suspicious accounts, the Commission said adding: – Those who give bribes should be dealt with too, and foreign companies involved in oil, minerals and other extractive industries must make their payments much more open to public scrutiny.
The report further calls for a reorientation of aid towards infrastructure, which would take up the largest share of the extra inflow – 10 billion dollar a year in the next five years, rising to 20 billion dollar a year in the following five.
The bulk of the rest would be split between health and education, with a new emphasis on strengthening higher education, including the creation of Indian-style institutes of technology.
It also includes proposals for promoting private sector investment. The report puts new funding needs for public investment at 75 billion dollar a year overall, suggesting that half could be found in the next three to five years, with two-thirds of this coming from donors.
In a nod to proposals from French President Jacques Chirac for an international tax to fight AIDS, the report said: “Practical proposals should be developed for innovative financing methods such as international levies on aviation.”
Another eye-catching proposal was for an end over the next decade to rich country trade barriers and agricultural subsidies, which the commission lambasted for creating “appalling levels of developed country protectionism”.
– By doing this they will cut massive wasteful spending, and provide huge benefits to their own public, and to Africa and other developing countries, the report added.
The Africa Commission endorses UK Chancellor Gordon Browns proposed international finance facility as the best way to ensure the “frontloading” of aid, a scheme that has been snubbed by the US. The Chancellor is said to be hopeful that the US can still be won round.
The commission also demands the restitution of assets to countries whose former dictators had squirreled away billions of dollars in foreign bank accounts, an issue on which “the Swiss have done rather better than the UK”, a commission source said.
Meanwhile the Africa Commission report faces a daunting task to gain acceptance from the G8 group of rich nations and win over skeptics who see it as a talking-shop.
Critics say its noble words will go the same way as previous Africa plans – unless rich nation groups like the G8 and the European Union, both of which Britain chairs this year, put their money where their mouths are.
– Taken together, the recommendations are an ambitious but realistic agenda for debt, aid, trade and HIV and AIDS, British agency ActionAid said adding: – The first real test will be whether it is acted upon at the G8 leaders Gleneagles summit in July.
Some in Africa view the plan as a public relations vehicle for Blair, whose national and global reputation sank over Iraq.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
