The contrast between the prosperous businessmen and politicians packing the World Economic Forum in the well-heeled Swiss ski resort of Davos every January and the poverty-stricken Third World could hardly be greater. In a single week, the Forum will spend more on food than a moderate-sized African town could expect to see in an entire year.
It is therefore appropriate that in 2005, among the many issues that are being raised the continuing tragedy of poverty, disease and failing investment in the world’s poorest countries has for once taken center stage. The agenda has been set by the British government which this year chairs the G-8 group of rich countries and from June will hold the six-month presidency of the European Union. Prime Minister Blair and his Finance Minister Gordon Brown have made much of forgiving Third World debt while boosting aid. So far, however, the British are waiting for others to sign up to their radical program rather than making a sweeping unilateral gesture themselves.
It has taken French President Jacques Chirac to make more immediate and obviously positive suggestions to fund the fight against diseases like AIDS, which he described memorably as “the silent tsunamis”. He is suggesting that a dollar levy on every airline ticket sold or a similar modest charge on transportation fuel would quickly amass billions to be used to improve the lives of the very poorest peoples. He wants his idea put on the agenda for the G-8’s annual summit this July in Scotland.
It does not really matter that this sudden outburst of concern by the wealthy First World is largely motivated by self-interest. Europe and North America have woken up to two realizations. The first is that unless they better share the world’s wealth, important new markets for the products of their own mature economies will fail to open up. The more important realization however, which Chirac did not seek to hide, is that where there are poverty, despair and ignorance, terrorism and lawlessness will breed. Thus if the First World fights to end these injustices now, it will save itself the greater effort of later having to fight against the consequences of neglecting them.
Unfortunately in one way or another, we have rather been here before. Rich countries have regularly pledged mountains to help the world’s poorest people, but in the event they have delivered molehills. This time though, there does seem to be growing acceptance that brave words are no longer enough. Maybe because the tsunami has also lifted up the consciences of the general public in rich countries, the politicians will feel that they must back their fine words with equally fine actions.
It is meanwhile entirely appropriate that as the rich and powerful meet in Switzerland, a World Social Forum has got under way on the other side of the world in Brazil with the intention of keeping the Davos delegates honest. It will quite rightly challenge them not only to deliver on their promises to the Third World but to deliver them sensitively and consistently.
