E-Book Content
17.2 Editorial 669 MH
15/2/05
1:58 pm
Page 669
17 February 2005 Volume 433 Issue no 7027
Africa 2005 The world’s poorest continent is rightly at the top of the global agenda this year. But the agenda needs to be set by Africa, with the outside world in a supporting role — not the other way round.
ackling the neglect of Africa is high on the list of priorities of the G8 — the world’s eight largest industrialized nations — and the European Union (EU) in 2005. This neglect was once described as a “scar on the conscience of the world” by Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister, who this year chairs the G8. Chief among the items for action are a promise of debt relief for the poorest countries, improved terms of trade with the EU, and up to $50 billion each year in aid through a planned fund known as the International Finance Facility. It is likely that Blair and the UK chancellor, Gordon Brown, will succeed in getting endorsement for their plans from many G8 leaders. But that still leaves two bigger obstacles: raising the money, and deciding how to spend it. In a report published in January, Jeffrey Sachs, an adviser to the United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, said that to meet the Millennium Development Goals — a series of targets to halve global poverty, hunger and disease — rich countries will need to raise their annual aid in support of the goals by a factor of four to $121 billion in 2006, rising still further to $189 billion in 2015. If additional aid cheques begin to flow, who will decide how the money is spent? To help Africans set their priorities, Blair and Bob Geldof set up the Commission for Africa — a group of 17 commissioners comprising world leaders and heads of UN agencies (mostly from Africa) who have been charged with asking people what they think international aid should be spent on.
T
Technology transfer O