Washington, DC — The leaders of the world's largest industrialized nations agreed Thursday to provide technical and financial assistance for an African peacekeeping force, pledged to provide additional funding for debt relief to help make up a $1 billion shortfall in debt relief efforts and promised "substantial improvements" in market access for African agricultural products exported to industrialized countries
The "G8 Africa Action Plan" also committed the leaders of France, the U.S., Russia, Japan, Italy and Germany to supporting efforts to resolve armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan and to consolidating peace in Angola and Sierra Leone within the next year.
But Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his British counterpart Tony Blair failed in an effort to persuade G-8 leaders to make a firm promise that by 2006 they will increase aid to Africa by $6 billion a year. The world leaders had agreed at a conference in Monterrey, Mexico earlier this year to increase aid expenditures by a total of $12 billion and the Canadian and British delegations argued strongly that half of this money should be pledged to Africa. But behind the scenes, according to several delegations, the U.S. and Japan in particular said they would not promise to allocate fifty percent of new assistance to Africa.
The final document issued Thursday afternoon was a compromise between these two positions. "Each of us will decide, in accordance with our respective priorities and procedures, how we will allocate the additional money we have pledged," declares the Action Plan. "Assuming strong African policy commitments, and given recent assistance trends, we believe that in aggregate half or more of our new development assistance could be directed to African nations that govern justly, invest in their own people and promote economic freedom. In this way we will support the objectives of NEPAD."
The G-8 leaders put a particular emphasis on linking assistance to results and performance: "This is not old fashioned aid. It is a genuine partnership," Prime Minister Blair told reporters. "In the past it has been based on a very passive relationship between us giving money and them receiving it... That's not the deal anymore."
At a closing press conference today Canadian Prime Minister Chretien also praised the Action Plan as "a new beginning" for Africa based on mutual interest. "The point is not to give them a handout. We are investing in health and infrastructure so as to build a framework which will be conducive to investment", said the Prime Minister. "We hope that with the new partnership they will recover economically and that will be good for Africa and good for us."
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, speaking for the African heads of states who attended the G-8, characterized the new plan as a "good arrangement." Adding "Of course, there is nothing that is human that can be regarded as perfect."
The 19 page Action Plan does commit the G-8 countries to several concrete goals tied to firm timetables. For instance, the G-8 leaders agree to provide "technical and financial assistance so that, by 2010, African countries and regional and sub-regional organizations are able to ... undertake peace support operations in accordance with the United Nations charter." In addition, the leaders of the eight most important industrialized nations in the world commit to work with African partners to develop a plan for such a force by 2003.
The G-8 leaders also specifically pledge to support African efforts to resolve armed conflicts in the Congo and Sudan within the next year, to support efforts to consolidate peace in Angola and Sierra Leone and to support post conflict development in the Great Lakes Region and Sudan.
Recognizing that the world economic slowdown over the past two years is endangering the minimal debt relief process already underway through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, the G-8 leaders also agreed today to add more money to that effort. "We will fund our share of the shortfall in the HIPC Initiative, recognizing that this shortfall will be up to US$1 billion," the Africa Action Plan declares. "We call on other creditor countries to join us."
The African leaders have also pushed hard over the last few months for a lowering of the barriers to African imports into the industrialized economies and today the G-8 agreed to provide greater market access for African products. Specifically, the world leaders focus on market access for agriculture, reductions in export subsidies and "substantial reductions" in the money they provide domestic agricultural producers in the industrialized economies to promote exports. The Africa Action Plan also commits these developed economies to ensuring that national product standards are not used as a way to restrict African imports.
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The G-8 leaders, however, could not agree on any specific targeting of funds to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the only health related deadline they set was a promise to work to eliminate polio by 2005.
Some individual members of the G-8 also pledged today to go further than the Summit document, offering specific amounts of money and Africa focused initiatives. For instance, Canadian Prime Minister Chretien pledged that his government alone will eliminate market access barriers for the 34 poorest African countries and expand investment in education for children. U.S. officials also listed their own initiatives for Africa as did leaders from Germany and France.
But the importance of this process, insisted Prime Minister Chretien, is that for the first time the G-8 has "agreed to enter into a partnership with African countries that are committed to good governance and the rule of law." Asked how the African leaders who were present responded, Chretien told an afternoon press conference on Thursday, "The African leaders who were here said they were delighted and thankful."
