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June 14, 2005

Don't blink: the world is tilting on its axis
Bob Geldof


As long as Tony Blair doesn’t back down, he has an historic chance to make poverty history in Africa

A YEAR AGO, when I suggested to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the idea of the Commission for Africa, I secretly hoped for a political breakthrough. I also hoped for tough public debate on what is clearly the greatest political problem of our time. How do we stop the pornography of poverty that is paraded across our television screens every night? How much can we do to stop that and how much can be achieved while there is such egregious corruption in many African governments? The success or failure of our efforts depends heavily on the willingness and ability of African governments to govern effectively and tackle corruption.

The level of debate on this island has developed into something extraordinary, something this country, the media and this generation should be proud of. And, thanks to the results at the meeting of G7 finance ministers at the weekend, that debate may actually come to a successful juncture with the political process, some time over the next month. If you’re interested in this stuff, then you live in exciting times, because we have helped to define the terms of debate for these times.

It’s been well covered that the Chancellor pulled off 100 per cent debt cancellation. But it must be clear that this is just a first step. Still hidden among the tedious small print of the “communiqué” (how demoralising to have become a summit geek) is that for the first time the Germans and Italians signed off on doubling aid — by committing themselves to give the magnificently generous sum of 0.7 per cent of their respective national wealth to foreign assistance by 2015. This goal has been put off for 35 years, and now they join the majority of the G7 who are committed to this goal. This is bigger than the debt deal, and makes the full achievement of the Commission for Africa’s goals ever more possible, though still, at this moment, just out of reach.

The doubling has not yet been secured because the Canadians, the Japanese and above all the Americans have not yet delivered future commitments on aid. That is Mr Blair’s job now. Canada is the only G8 member in real financial health, operating at a surplus; America’s President owes the Prime Minister a lot both politically and personally and has promised more, though as yet we’re not sure how much or in what form; and Japan, once the world’s largest donor, cannot be let off the hook. Live 8, the poverty coalitions and the Prime Minister need to focus on these countries to achieve the second piece of the debt-aid-trade package. The game is on.

Trade justice has not yet been secured. The finance ministers made progress on this at the weekend, demanding that a timetable be agreed by the Hong Kong trade meeting in December to get rid of the nauseating protectionism and subsidies that cause people to suffer in Africa. And they promised Africans the independence to decide for themselves when, and how, they should open their own markets to competition. On this one point there is some consternation about the debt deal from the weekend: I’m all for conditions that fight corruption, but not for those conditions that allow the IMF and the World Bank to meddle and micromanage economic and trade policy in these countries. It is quite ridiculous and irrelevant to demand as a condition of debt forgiveness that a country with no economy open its markets to us without demur. That makes no sense and has no advantages to us; Africa has a pathetic 2 per cent of world trade.

For the Prime Minister an historic deal is now in his sights. It could be his for the taking. Don’t back down. Don’t lower the bar. Don’t blink. Accept no half-measures or small-time initiatives from the Americans, Canadians or Japanese. Know that especially in American and Canada there are growing, powerful domestic lobbies that are looking for historic outcomes at the Gleneagles summit. An entire country, and increasingly the global media, and a generation of Africans, are looking now to you. The spotlight is on your next move.

And as informed taxi drivers, bartenders and African citizens will now tell you, the right thing is this: debt cancellation, doubling aid, trade reform, delivered on an emergency basis and bound with tough conditions to ensure democracy, accountability and transparency from these governments towards their citizens, and the firm rooting-out of corruption. Remember that it was above all the African commissioners on the Commission for Africa who demanded the very toughest anti-corruption measures. The sceptical columnists are right: we must be accountable through the toughest standards to ensure new resources are allocated to the best-governed countries. This was always the fourth part of the debt-aid-trade-governance package. One cannot work without the other. That was clear always within the commission’s analysis.

And those who write that everything is useless, what do they propose? Nothing? We sit and absorb the ceremony of death played out live on our screens every night. Or we try. We at least try. And we try together.

Make Poverty History, the One campaign in America and Live 8 are indeed forcing change. The world is slowly, creakingly but surely beginning to tilt on its axis. It is for Tony Blair and the other heads of government and state in Gleneagles at the G8 summit to ensure they go further, all the way. Do more because you can, and do it now because you must.

To do nothing is intolerable. To do something is not enough. To do everything we can is our clear duty. And we are winning. See you in Edinburgh.

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from The Times Online - U.K., 14 June 2005.