G8 does good (but not great)

It's hard to know how much the terrorist attacks yesterday in London caused the G8 leaders to take their eyes off the ball, but as the G8 Summit wound down today, it's apparent that Tony Blair and many of us are a little disappointed with what was ultimately accomplished.  Some of the more concrete and/or higher profile results in a nutshell:

• G8 leaders agreed to double aid to Africa from $25B to $50B, but didn't go the next step to match Blair's challenge to commit 0.7 percent of their nations' incomes to foreign aid by 2015.  The EU agreed to that level of support but the U.S. balked - the U.S. is currently giving 0.16 percent of national income, the smallest percentage of any of the G8 nations.
• The leaders agreed on a deal to cancel the debt of the world's 18 poorest nations, 14 of which are in Africa.
• The G8 members agreed to work toward freer trade with poor nations, including ending farm subsidies that make it very difficult for poorer nations to export their agricultural goods to richer nations (the details will be worked out at the WTO meeting in December) - this may be more important to Africa's future than the debt relief.
• G8 leaders tried to reach a consensus on reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions, but again, Bush balked at a firm number.  On the plus side, Bush admitted that global warming is an issue and that human activity is partly to blame for climate change; positions he has previously resisted.
• The leaders committed $3-9B aid to the Palestinians which may have a positive effect on the Israeli/Palestinian peace process.

It's a shame that the G8 did not achieve the full scale of the goals that they had set out to accomplish, and an even bigger shame that the U.S., the richest of the G8 nations, was the roadblock to two of the more important goals (aid to Africa as a percentage of GNP and greenhouse gas emission reduction), but the aid and trade deals, combined with the concomitant better governance from African leaders, is a big step in the right direction for Africa.  It will be interesting to watch what happens over the next few years as a result of this G8 Summit.

Comments

[Krishnan Patel]

Hi,

Regarding: "It's hard to know how much the terrorist attacks yesterday in London caused the G8 leaders to take their eyes off the ball" I would say that it was probably not the terrorist attacks: the media and leaders would have taken their eyes off this quite soon anyway, as this is what they do each year.

In terms of what was achieved, there is a lot of spin, so even what you list above is not as good as the details reveal. This site has a lot more detail:

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/g8summit2005.asp

One thing that this site noted was about the $40 billion write off:

"
* It is spread over 40 years, amounting to $1 billion per year
* In real terms, this is around $17 billion in write-off
* Unfair and harsh economic conditions are still in place, promoting unequal trade
* While it is 100% cancellation for those 18 countries covered, it is around 10% for the total number of countries that urgently need debt relief.
* It is hardly a cancellation. What is given with one hand is taken with the other, because countries will receive a dollar for dollar reduction in aid flows equivalent to the amount canceled
"