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Nigeria: Yar'Adua Invited to G8
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This Day (Lagos)
21 May 2007
Posted to the web 21 May 2007
Samuel Famakinwa
Lagos
In what could pass as a growing endorsement of President-elect Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who assumes Presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) industrial nations in January, has invited the President-elect, with five other African Heads of State to the Annual Summit of the G8 holding between June 6 - 8, 2007 in Heiligendamm, Germany.
This comes on the heel of last week's letter by British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair seeking an early meeting with Yar'Adua and saying that Britian was ready to work with the new government.
Attending the G8 Summit could mark Yar'Adua's first official foreign trip after his swearing-in next week.
Other Heads of State invited from Africa are Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Mohamed Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and John A. Kufuor of Ghana who is attending in his capacity as the current chairman of the African Union (AU).
They will all represent Africa at a special programme of the Summit tagged "Outreach Africa" where issues of good governance, sustainable investment, peace and security on the African continent would be discussed.
Attention will also be focused on urgent problems in Africa relating to economic development, poverty reduction, and the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Yar'Adua's invitation is a positive development for Nigeria considering that President Olusegun Obasanjo, who for a long time had been a consistent participant at G8 Summits, was left out at last year's Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the aftermath of the failed Third Term bid.
For some time now, the G8 Summit has been more than just a meeting of the biggest industrial nations and thus invitations to Heiligendamm have been sent to other partners too.
Five big emerging economies (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa) as well as African countries believed to be important would be sitting around the conference table with the eight Heads of State and Government of the eight industrial nations.
According to information posted on the website of the G8, the German G8 Presidency believes that Official Development Assistance (ODA) and debt relief alone will not suffice to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa.
It believes that economic growth and investment, ownership and reform processes in Africa are important prerequisites for that.
The German Chancellor attaches importance to an expansion of G8 relations with Africa in the form of a partnership for reform saying "Our neighbouring continent of Africa needs a new qualitative approach. It is by no means a 'lost' continent.
The German Presidency wants to send a positive message expressing confidence in Africa's future and that "The African countries need to develop structures that will encourage private investment, that is more democracy, less corruption, more ownership and more resource sovereignty."
According to the G8, an important step that was taken at the Cologne Summit in 1999 was debt relief for the poorest of the poor and by adopting the Africa Action Plan at the 2002 Summit in Kananaskis, the G8 pledged to support Africa's reform processes as part of The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
Further steps were taken in Gleneagles in 2005 when multilateral debt relief and additional financial commitments were agreed.
There will also be a dialogue with emerging economies to discuss global economy, climate protection and development co-operation.
As a result, Chancellor Merkel has also invited Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa to take part in the so-called Outreach Meetings in Heiligendamm.
The G8 aims to find new answers to global political and global economic problems in dialogue with the big emerging economies.
Germany's agenda for the G8 Summit makes it clear that because the emerging economies now carry more weight in the global economy they should also take on more responsibility for global issues.
Germany wants to use its G8 Presidency to give recognition to the fact that these emerging economies have a bigger role to play and at the same time they are to be involved more in "global governance".
The G8 is one of the most important international forums for dealing with global issues and the G8 Presidency plays a very important role due to the organisation's loose structure.
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Heads of State and Government of the leading industrial nations met for the first time in Rambouillet, France in 1975 to discuss developments in the global economy. At that time, the world's six or seven largest economic powers were represented. This was the founding moment of the world economic summit.
Today, G8 summits are still the climax of the annual presidency of each state. The range of issues under discussion now covers the whole spectrum of global politics. Foreign and security policy and development issues are discussed in addition to economic matters.
Germany took over the presidency of the G8 from Russia on January 1, 2007.
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