INSIGHT

Njongonkulu Ndungane

THE Group of Eight (G8) summit has come and, like other summits, gone. A lot of anticipation preceded this year’s summit against a backdrop of an escalation of the usual problems and new challenges bedevilling the world, especially Africa.

Our world communities are currently confronting the worst food crisis in 45 years. Food prices have tripled in three years. The World Bank estimates that 100 million people are falling deeper into poverty as prices for staples like wheat, rice, and corn have risen 83percent. Coming on top of Africa’s old, existing challenges, our continent is disproportionately affected.

Escalating global oil prices, which contribute to the dramatic rise in food prices, have also hit the poor hardest.

Climate change is a nightmare globally but presents a much more precarious scenario for the people of the world’s poorest continent. Global warming has already seen such dramatic declines in rainfall and crop yields that previous famines could be dwarfed. Desertification is another result and it is accelerating in Africa. There are already severe water shortages and in other parts of the world, water is killing or displacing people.

Given these scenarios , African Monitor expected the summit of the world’s richest, most industrialised nations would reflect the gravity and urgency necessary to deal with these issues, more than ever before. I believe we were justified in having high hopes.

While the world economic situation has clearly restricted the ambitions of this G8, the plain fact remains that it is not the money but the will to act that matters. The same will that drove the political contract of deep seriousness in Gleneagles in 2005 is needed today, and with it radical action.

Among the many things we looked forward to was a recognition by the G8 of their failure to meet the promised aid levels to Africa. We predicted that all G8 countries would reaffirm their commitment to the Gleneagles pledges, particularly on increasing Official Development Assistance (ODA) levels by increasing aid to R384billion a year by 2010, with half going to Africa and to cancel the debt of the most heavily indebted poor nations.

We expected an undertaking to take concrete steps with timelines by the G8 countries. Last month, a report by the Africa Progress Panel, a group set up to monitor implementation of the Gleneagles plan, said that under current spending the G8 will fall R307bn short of its target. The report was rebutted by Japan’s foreign ministry a day before the summit started, denying that the G8 was failing to deliver on its promises. It is disappointing that some G8 members are in denial when evidence that a lot needs to be done is clear. Notably, collectively the G8 has delivered just R23bn of the R192bn pledged to Africa in 2005.

As it is, our expectations were largely not met. Rather, Africa’s problems were eclipsed by the Zimbabwe issue. There is nothing wrong with focusing attention on Zimbabwe – there is certainly a need to be concerned. But, to allow one country’s problems to take precedence over those of the rest of the continent, given the gravity of problems, was a big disappointment.

We applaud the fact that the G8 leaders discussed development in Africa, with United States President George Bush reiterating his call for G8 accountability. In this spirit of accountability, the G8 nations released reports on health and anti-corruption to demonstrate progress in fulfilling past G8 commitments.

We note that the G8 leaders also committed to realistic, measurable commitments on health worker training, neglected tropical diseases and long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets. But similar reports should also be released on ODA to Africa, including budgetary commitments towards development for Africa – and this should be new money, not money committed in the past.

The G8 summit also fell short of offering practical steps to work towards improving global food security. Practical undertakings to invest in agricultural production and to prioritise Africa in this endeavour, including setting up an emergency fund to avert the global food crisis, could have been tangible steps. African Monitor research shows that donors are contributing the least to agricultural production in Africa. The G8 could have encouraged a policy shift, given the food crisis. There could have been commitments to practical steps to ensuring that unfair trade practices, for example agricultural subsidies, do not hinder Africa’s agricultural development, especially in light of the food crisis.

Trade justice issues were also downplayed, yet they shape today’s tilted world in which current systems and policies ensure that poor countries are scheduled to the perpetually dependent and become poorer.

We have seven years left to the deadline for eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000 to reduce world poverty by 2015. The G8 renewed their commitment to the MDGs, but acknowledged that significant challenges remain at the mid-point to those goals.

The group expressed its determination to honour their commitments to fight infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and polio, and work towards the goal of universal access to HIV/Aids prevention, treatment and care by 2010. But acknowledging the need to upscale is not enough – the G8 needed the political guts to come up with specific, measurable, practical commitments with timelines to help particularly Africa meet its MDGs.

Although the G8 pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50percent by 2050, each country was left to pursue its own path in tackling the pollution blamed for global warming. The verbal commitments therefore are non-binding. A clear, practical adaptation plan for Africa was needed, supported in the form of an African emergency fund for climate change issues.

Without practical commitments, the fear is that “at this rate, by 2050 the world will be cooked and the G8 leaders will be long forgotten”, according to Oxfam policy adviser Antonio Hill.

One can hence be excused for concluding that this year’s G8 summit was a talk shop, especially where problems were just acknowledged without measurable practical commitments given to addressing them.

Instead of reflecting the gravity and urgency of the situation globally, more so in Africa, all we got was more talk and zero practical, measurable commitments with set timelines.

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane is the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town