Some Africa Experts Shrug at G-8 Largess

GLENEAGLES, Scotland —  Leaders of the world’s richest nations toasted their own beneficence. Africa advocates praised the leaders’ commitment to provide more aid. Live 8 impresarios Bono and Bob Geldof proclaimed it a remarkable moment in history.

Yet to African-born economist George Ayittey, the hearty endorsements of the just-concluded Group of 8 summit in Gleneagles had a familiar ring.

“We’ve seen all these things before,” said Ayittey, an American University professor who participated in a “Shadow G-8” conference in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. “It is noble to see the rich countries wanting to help. But the solutions to Africa’s problems lie in Africa itself, and Africa’s salvation should not depend on whether Westerners attend rock concerts.”

Ayittey’s caution reflected concerns expressed by some Africa specialists that the G-8’s pledge to double aid to the continent may not produce the results that the group’s members and supporters were predicting at the summit’s closing Friday.

For several G-8 members, including the United States, the promise to boost development aid to about $50 billion a year by 2010 is just a repackaging of previous commitments, not generosity inspired by the summit, several analysts said.

In addition, the increased assistance is unlikely to produce lasting results unless African nations follow through on promises to undertake difficult reforms and unless Western nations make sure their money is not squandered, some summit observers and participants said.

Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who placed Africa at the top of the summit agenda, acknowledged that the G-8’s action plan would succeed only if African leaders rose to the challenge.

“This can never be done on the basis of the old relationship of charity between donor and recipient,” Blair said. “In the end, it is only vibrant African leadership, capable of giving good governance to its people, that can make the ultimate difference, that will root out corruption, that will entrench democracy and human rights and will make sure that people respect the rule of law.”

The G-8 plan was endorsed by seven African heads of state who participated in the summit, and who promised to uphold their end of the bargain outlined by Blair.

“Africa has looked forward to this particular meeting with great expectation,” Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said at the concluding news conference, calling the summit’s outcome “a great success.”

The G-8’s initiative contains several proposals designed to alleviate poverty, combat disease and improve living conditions on the world’s poorest continent. Besides agreeing to double development aid, members promised to write off the debts of 14 African nations, train 20,000 peacekeepers, aim for universal access to AIDS treatment and increase efforts to eradicate malaria and polio and improve education.

The Group of 8 -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia -- has no formal enforcement authority. But its members generally feel bound by their commitments, and observers are quick to call attention to any lapses.

Although most advocacy groups on the sidelines of the summit commended the G-8 for paying more attention to Africa’s plight, several said the aid commitment consisted largely of previously announced pledges.

One notable exception was the last-minute offer of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to pony up an additional $10 billion over five years.

Before heading to Gleneagles, President Bush promised to double U.S. assistance to Africa by 2010, to at least $8.6 billion a year. But an analysis by the Global AIDS Alliance concluded that only 7% of Bush’s pledge consisted of “new” money, with much of the remainder based on previously planned increases in the administration’s Millennium Challenge Account initiative.

U.S. officials acknowledged as much.

“There wasn’t a new commitment reflected in the text, but it was an articulation of previous commitments that were already made,” said deputy national security advisor Faryar Shirzad, Bush’s principal emissary in the G-8 negotiations.

Ayittey, the American University economist, said he regarded last week’s events as part of a 10-year “attention-deficit cycle” on the part of wealthy nations.

In a recently published book, “Africa Unchained,” he contends that aid has often been wasted and that progress has occurred in countries where reforms were generated from within instead of imposed by outsiders.

“In 1985, we had the Live Aid thing for Ethiopia,” Ayittey said in an interview, referring to the rock benefit to fight poverty that was a forerunner to Live 8. “Money was raised. Everybody went home. We all forgot about Africa.”

In 1996, a U.N. special initiative led to a commitment by wealthy nations to increase aid to Africa by $25 billion. “Champagne glasses were clicking,” Ayittey said. “Two years later, everybody had forgotten about it.

“Now, 10 years later, we have the same thing again,” he said.