This Monday, July 7, Japan will be hosting the heads of government from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the UK, and the US in the northern province of Hokkaido for the 2008 G8 Summit. The leaders of eight of the richest countries in the world meet annually at this conference to coordinate their strategies for tackling poverty, climate change and other global problems.
Will the G8 nations take decisive action to promote a just approach to African development? According to Overseas Development Institute analyst Fletcher Tembo, “This G8 Summit will be particularly significant because there are big issues on the international development agenda that require firm G8 commitments to be made in 2008; and yet the risk of not delivering on these agendas has never been higher.” Japan, Britain, Russia and France are all sending new presidents to the summit. These “first-timers” may be wary of rocking the boat by making big international commitments.
This Monday, July 7, Japan will be hosting the heads of government from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the UK, and the US in the northern province of Hokkaido for the 2008 G8 Summit. The leaders of eight of the richest countries in the world meet annually at this conference to coordinate their strategies for tackling poverty, climate change and other global problems.
Will the G8 nations take decisive action to promote a just approach to African development? According to Overseas Development Institute analyst Fletcher Tembo, “This G8 Summit will be particularly significant because there are big issues on the international development agenda that require firm G8 commitments to be made in 2008; and yet the risk of not delivering on these agendas has never been higher.” Japan, Britain, Russia and France are all sending new presidents to the summit. These “first-timers” may be wary of rocking the boat by making big international commitments.
At the 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the G8 countries
pledged to scale up aid for Africa alone to at least $25 billion a year by 2010, and to
cancel in full all debt owed by heavily indebted poor countries. Since then the G8 has failed to deliver on
these promises. The Financial Times
reported on a leaked communiqué
this week in which G8 leaders, while repeating
promises to increase aid, failed to mention the specific target of $25
billion
per year for Africa. If the actual summit communiqué reflects that
language, this would be truly disturbing. At current rates, aid will
fall far short of the 2010 target agreed upon at previous G8 meetings.
As Jubilee
International Research
shows, of the 18 African countries that qualified for
debt cancellation, on average only 65% of their debt was canceled.
While this represents some progress, that 35% gap, and the harmful
economic conditionalities attached to some debt cancellation programs
demonstrate another failure of the G8 nations to make good on their
promises.
In
contrast to the four heads of state making their G8 debuts, President
George Bush will fly to Hokkaido in the waning months of his final
term. HIV/AIDS activists
in the US have been working hard to secure the passage of improved
legislation authorizing a $50 billion five-year global HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria program, so that Bush will be able to press
other rich countries to scale up their own levels of commitment to
address these global health crises accordingly. While the bill has
passed the House, it remains blocked in the Senate.
As Desmond Tutu put it during a June 18 teleconference, "it is important because if – or let us say when - the United States takes action of this kind, it has an important impact on other nations. The G8 have promised $60 billion for universal access to people who are living with AIDS. When the United States takes the action that is being suggested in the legislation, that will generate more specific country commitments." Despite a swell of public pressure, the support of both 2008 US presidential candidates and the voices of prominent Africans leaders like Archbishop Tutu and new Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga in support of this legislation, the Senate was unable to overcome resistance to the bill by a group of Republican Senators, and it remains stalled.
Will Japan pick up some of the slack in international leadership promoting African development as host of this year's summit.? In recent years, Japan has become more and more interested in the continent, investing in infrastructure and small-scale businesses. In May, Japan hosted the annual Tokyo International Commission on African Development (TICAD). African leaders and international organizations came together to discuss how to move “Towards a Vibrant Africa,” as the conference was titled. You can find out more about the issues discussed at TICAD here. At the end of the TICAD conference, Japan pledged to deepen its connections with Africa, including by sending $100 million of food aid this summer and doubling private investment by 2012. Japan also committed to raising issues like agricultural reform and food security, health-care worker training and retention, and infrastructure development at the G8 Summit.
What will Japan's emerging interest in African development yield, and how will it compare to the (often flawed) approaches of the US, Europe and China? Despite the failure of Congress to move the US global AIDS bill, will President Bush stand up for the commitments he and other G8 leaders have made to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic, or will the meeting instead see the formal abandonment of global promises for universal access to treatment?
Please join the discussion with your thoughts, and check back here shortly for more views as the summit gets underway.
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