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THE GLENEAGLES IN CONTEXT
A SUMMIT FOR AFRICA : The G8 Leaders Deliberate

Although as many have observed, it is still not quite clear what was agreed in Gleneagles. Even though we have the text of the final communiqué, the main thrust of the content was that there was enough there for Mr Blair to claim a triumph and get a valuable endorsement by Sir Bob Geldof. The authors of the Africa Commission Report worked hard to secure as much as possible of the report's recommendations, but these were buried in the details of the communiqué on such areas as health       and education, governance and capacity building, the brain drain and measures against corruption. The key elements of the 'big push' which attracted most attention were the commitments on aid which, because one was dealing with really vast figures and using the word 'doubling,' itself a little suggestive of magic, easily caused people to fall over backwards in amazement, even if it seems that not everybody had really signed up to it. It also did not adopt Gordon Brown's proposed International Finance Facility (IFF), which several G8 countries still have reservations about; nor did it adopt the recommendation of both the Africa Commission and the AU Heads of State for 100 per cent debt cancellation.

Some reports suggest that the concessions which made the difference came from the Germans and the Japanese (these are to some extent confirmed by Oxfam). But it is more likely that these were easier to come by in the atmosphere of sympathy for Mr Blair, generated by the fact that the opening day of the summit had been horribly marred by bombs in London, causing serious loss of life. It is less certain that the concerts and demonstrations plucked any G8 heartstrings, and the tendency now to assume that the violins have stopped playing is to wonder whether it is going to be easy to pick up the Kananaskis G8 process, and how much will actually be possible during the Russian chairmanship of the G8 in 2006.

Although sometimes, in “Geldofian” excess, it went off message, it was, give or take some evident hiccups, at least largely a public relations success for the African image. It is an irony that news of the famine in Niger broke just three weeks after Gleneagles - the wrong time to stage another pop concert. And commentators have been diverted by the embarrassing attempt of the Niger President to say there was not really a famine, although he was perfectly right to say there is hunger every year throughout the Sahel without any international intervention. He is also, unfortunately, right in saying that there is always an element in these stories of the media colluding with aid agencies to over-dramatise the story for fund-raising purposes. Even so, there has been real hunger, and real mortality, not just in Niger but in other Sahelian countries, which, unhappily, is part of Africa's continuing reality.

While the G8 and Africa issue is very much still with us, we have tried to include a few reactions to Gleneagles from both academic and NGO circles, especially  as there has been a pause while the dust settles. There has inevitably been some back-tracking, especially on the debt issue, and senior staffers at the World Bank have queried the lack of sufficient compensation envisaged at Gleneagles to the bank's soft loan arm for poorer countries - the International Development Association (IDA). They urged that donors should pay the entire amount owed to the IDA up front, or it would have difficulty meeting its commitments. There have been other doubts expressed about the workability of the Gleneagles debt deal from some non-G8 rich countries. Reservations about increased aid, expressed when the Africa Commission Report was published (and before), continue to be voiced, but there have also been spirited defence of the rich continuing to assist the poor.

African reaction to the whole exercise has, on the whole, been muted, as there has been a strong feeling on the continent of being a spectator, while official reactions have been cautiously approving. After all, you do not look a gift horse in the mouth.  Both Presidents Obasanjo and Mbeki, the tandem of African 'hegemons' who have done so much to help bring the event about, gave cautious approval, although Obasanjo must have been rendered more comfortable by the announcement on June 30, in the week before the G8, of a deal on Nigeria's debt with the Paris Club, which was also mentioned in the Gleneagles communiqué, and contributed to the ambiance of well-being. The Millennium Development Goals’ "half-way" Summit in New York in September was also to be an important milestone, in view of expectations that many African countries have already been falling short of the 2015 targets. Some hard appraisals also come at the annual assemblies of the World Bank/IMF at the end of September.   [ back ]

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