Africa is still "a scar on the conscience of the world"
L'AQUILA, Italy — In late 2001, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to help lift African people out of poverty, saying the state of Africa is "a scar on the conscience of the world."
Since then, the remarks have been widely used to remind the international community of its responsibility for Africa.
Unfortunately, after nearly eight years, the scar still hurts badly due to insufficient actions from some developed nations despite their grand promises. And the pain is becoming acuter amid the global economic downturn.
Just like in the past several years, African development remains a major issue in this year's Group of Eight (G8) summit in L'Aquila. The three-day summit is expected to renew its commitment to Africa. However, many critics have called the commitments of the G8 leaders merely "lip service."
UN Development Program Administrator Helen Clark last month told the press that only 3 billion U.S. dollars of the 25 billion dollars that G8 nations pledged for Africa by 2010 had so far reached countries it was earmarked for. Insufficient aid is one of the main reasons for Africa's disappointing progress in meeting UN anti-poverty goals.
In 2000, a United Nations summit agreed to set up the so-called Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty. African and other poor countries set a series of targets to raise living standards by 2015.
However, "many countries in Africa are falling behind target to achieve the goals," said Clark. "But this is mainly because they did not get the support they require from the international community, whether that is in policy or funding."
Clark, a former New Zealand prime minister, said that Ethiopia and Cape Verde were the only African countries on target to meet UN anti-poverty goals.
Admittedly, there are many reasons why the poverty-stricken continent is difficult to be changed. But undeniably, the Western countries, which have a long colonial history in Africa, shall be held mainly responsible for the status quo of Africa.
Since the late 1990s, African development has been wedged into the G8 agenda. Since 2000, a dozen of African leaders have been invited to join the annual G8 gathering.
At the summit in 2005 in Gleneagles, Scotland, the G8 countries — namely Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — committed to increasing aid to Africa by 25 billion dollars annually by 2010, more than doubling the aid to Africa compared with 2004.
However, according to a report released last month by anti-poverty body ONE, Italy and France were so far behind on their aid pledges to Africa that they would threaten to cause the entire G8 to miss its targets.
"The world's richest countries had delivered only a third of the extra aid they promised by 2010, despite being two-thirds of the way to their deadline," said the report.
Ahead of the G8 summit in Italy, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent a letter to the G8 leaders expressing his concern about action on their aid commitment to Africa.
Africa contributed least to the global financial crisis but it has ended up worst impacted. According to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Africa economy is likely to grow 2.8 percent this year, half of its growth rate last year.
Analysts warn that the global economic downturn threatens to undo more than a decade of progress in reducing poverty in Africa.
As the UN chief put it, "the economic crisis cannot become an excuse to abandon commitments. It is even more reason to make them concrete."
- By Tian Fan | Xinhua