Kampala — THIS years' meeting of the heads of the eight most industrialised nations (G8 Summit) is scheduled for June 6-8 in Germany. The G8 comprises Russia, the United States of America, Britain, France, Japan, Germany, Canada and Italy. Through this annual forum, the members discuss serious international problems. In 2006, the meeting took place in St. Petersburg, Russia. The agenda covered:global energy security, infectious diseases and education.

The 2005 Summit took place in Gleneagles, Scotland, where top on the agenda was Africa's development. Out of the Gleneagles summit, several promises for Africa's development were made. They have been ignored. The promises included full debt cancellation for 18 countries, increasing of aid and reaching a favourable trade deal for poor countries in the global economy.

It was not the first time commitments and promises were being made to Africa by developed countries. In 1970, the United Nations set a target of 0.7 percent of national income as the minimum aid threshold for developed countries, which was later ignored.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merikel, has already indicated that Africa's development will again be a key feature on the agenda of the G8 2007. As Africa waits for what will come from the German summit, it is imperative to track the progress of the implementation of the Gleneagles promises.

On increasing aid, a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that, the world's major donors provided US $103.9b in aid in 2006, down by 5.1% in 2005.

On fair trade, there is no progress yet in the global economy. The leaders had referred Africa's concerns over trade, especially the contentious issue of farmers' subsidies in developed countries, to the 2005 World Trade Organisation (WTO) conference in Hong Kong. This conference ended on a sharp deadlock because of developed countries' failure to end farmers' subsidies. Recent attempts to revive these stalled trade talks have not come to fruition.

Subsidies and other unfair practices by developed countries are a strong predicament for Africa's development and trade in the global economy. They are responsible for Africa's dwindling share of global trade that has been in steady decline from 6% in 1980 to 2% to date. The failure of developed countries to agree with Africa and other developing regions on the issue of subsidies demonstrates that the rich countries want to see continued dependency of poor countries, not development.

On debt cancellation, there is some progress. With support from some G8 members, the World Bank is implementing the Multi-Lateral Debt Relief Initiative. Under this initiative, countries that have graduated from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) are legible for additional debt relief. Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda are among the beneficiaries.

Nonetheless, what the fans and advocates of debt cancellation forget is the fact that most of these debts , although forgiven, have enormous impact in Africa and cannot be recovered by 'mere' cancellation. For example, recent studies by Africa Action, a US-based NGO, on debts in Africa indicate that the money spent paying back the debt and the interest on the debt expanded from an average of $1.7b from 1970-1979 to $14.6b from 1997-1999. In addition, Africa received a total of $540b in loans, paid back $550b, and still retained a debt of $295b between 1970 and 2002.

In 1990 African countries paid out $60b more than they received in new loans, and by 1997, this increased to about 162 British pounds. In 2001, sub-Saharan Africa borrowed $11.4b, and paid back $14.5b.

Finally, after the 2005 G8 meeting, Prime Minister Tony Blair told BBC that "only people who can change Africa are ultimately Africans." I agree with him. I believe that people are not developed but develop themselves. All they need is ambition, sincerity, frugality, empowerment, incentives and the means.

The writer is a researcher at the Development Research Centre