“Fulfill your promises before making new ones” — this is what African leaders have to say to the 33rd G-8 summit meeting now going on at the resort city of Heiligendamm, Germany. Days before the summit many African leaders and international organizations were drawing attention to the futility of the rich nations making new promises to eradicate poverty in Africa without fulfilling earlier declarations to this effect. They recalled promises made at the summit in the Scottish town of Glendale two years ago. The participants at the 2005 summit which they called the African summit agreed to write off the debts of 18 poorest countries and double the aid to them. However, 80 percent of their promises still remain to be honored.
Confirming this fact, the Oxfam, an international advocacy group working to end poverty, said the G-8 countries made some big promises about ending poverty in their 2005 summit, but most of them remain on paper. It said most rich states, despite their rapid economic growth in recent times, have defaulted on their aid commitments to poor countries.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also corroborated the Oxfam observation on the rich states’ failure to live up to their promises. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared a few days ago that she wanted to meet the African leaders and discuss her country’s aid schemes on the sidelines of the summit. Germany plans to increase the aid to Africa by 14 percent next year.
Whatever might be the deliberations at the Heiligendamm, the poor nations must be warned that they should not have hopes higher than to see a negligible fraction of the G-8 promises translated into action. There are several political considerations that will negatively influence the economic decisions. In the final analysis the rich will remain rich while the poor will grow poorer. We will see increasing domination by a unipolar world order while globalization robs the poor nations of their resources.
The people are aware of the potential dangers of the growing hunger and poverty in various states of Asia, Latin America and Africa the cause of which is traced back to the exploitation of their wealth by the colonial powers of Europe in the last century.
In an address to the nation a few days ago US President George Bush gloated over his generous assistance to various countries. However he did not mention that the lion’s share of the US generosity goes to Israel to suppress the Palestinian struggle to win their basic rights. Bush also sidestepped in his speech the US reluctance to take steps to check the industrial emissions that wreak havoc on Earth’s climate making living conditions more difficult for the poor nations. Instead, the president chose to be rhetorical about the US efforts to establish law and order in the world and make life more secure. We all know the arrogant US policies have only made the world more insecure and poorer.
The US has reportedly been demanding the participating states in the G-8 summit to apply pressure on the African countries not to welcome Chinese aid and investments in exchange for Africa’s natural resources.
There is no need to remind the G-8 countries again that it is their duty to take effective steps to create an environment for economic development in the African continent and then devise steps to bring about an end to poverty. The only viable solution is to offer sustained financial and technological assistance until positive results are visible in Africa. This effort should not be affected by the political and economic upheavals in other parts of the world. Before that the rich states should waive all debts as an initial move to make the poor nations revive their economies. The G-8 countries, most of which had fortified their economies with the plundered wealth of Africa, need not worry that they are losing their money. The total amount of the debts they are required to write off is only an insignificant part of what they robbed while they were the colonial masters of the continent.
