It is good to note that Blair is moving heaven and earth to rescue African people from poverty. It seems that Blair has become a "Good Samaritan" after going into a messy war with Iraq, against the wishes of the majority of his people in Britain.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair constituted a Commission on Africa and is the driving force for reduction of poverty in Africa and cancellation of debts owed by African states. Blair has made a trip to the US on June 7 and met President Bush.

The US President said to the media that helping Africa was a "central commitment of my administration's foreign policy" and on June 29 declared to double the aid to Africa for a five-year period but did not disclose the exact amount. The disbursement of aid will depend on conditionalities, such as political reforms, good governance and privatization of state-owned enterprises.

On July 2, in London's Hyde Park (and in seven other locations around the world), the Live 8 concert was conducted in which popular rock stars, such as Madonna, Paul McCartney, Elton John, U2, and Bob Geldof (famous for Ethiopia's famine relief Live Aid concert in 1985). The London concert has been free because it is not to make money but to raise awareness of poverty in poorer countries. Yet the London concert has already made $7 million dollars for aid to the poor.

Geldof has requested hundreds of thousands of participants of concerts to converge on Edinburgh (Scotland) to send the G-8 leaders a message: "Make Poverty History."

Disparity between rich and poor nations
Statistics indicate that the G-8 nations hold more than 60 percent of world's GDP, use 70 percent of the world's resources, and consume 86 percent of all goods in the world, although they constitute only 20 percent of world's population.

On the other hand, developing countries that constitute 80 percent of the global population and possesses 76 per cent of the world's resources, consume only 23 per cent of world's goods.

The above figures provide a glimpse of the gross inequality between the population of the G-8 industrialised and the rest of the world. The proportion of people living below the internationally accepted poverty line has fallen from 28 per cent in the late 80s to about 24 per cent in 2001, according to a report by the Australian Department of Finance.

Debt-relief for impoverished nations
At the recent meeting of the Finance Ministers of the G-8 countries, it has been decided to write off debt of about $40 billion owed to international financial lenders, such as the World Bank and IMF. Eighteen countries will be benefited by the debt relief. The countries are fourteen African, three Latin American countries, and Madagascar. These countries annually make interest payment of $1 billion of their debts to the international financial institutions. The G-8 nations are expected to provide the debt-money to the international financial lenders.

The new World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz (one of the staunchest protagonists of the Iraqi war) made his first trip to Africa, taking his cue from the British Prime Minister and the US President. It seems suddenly after the Iraqi war, debt-relief in Africa has become the "flavour" of this year.

Can debt-relief reduce poverty in Africa?
Although debt reduction will boost the African countries to direct funds to development in social sectors, one may argue that agricultural subsidies in the US and in Europe (in the EU zone, $1 billion a day, 40 percent of the EU's budget) have distorted global trade, causing a glut in food production within the EU and affected adversely the African countries. The subsidies to its farmers (4 per cent people within the EU) are more than six times the amount of aid given to developing countries.

Developing countries produce primary agricultural commodities and they cannot sell them in the G-8 countries because of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Trade is more important than aid The World Bank estimates that protection in industrialised countries (mostly in G-8 nations) costs developing countries more than $110 billion in trade, twice the value of aid. About half of the amount is caused by tariffs on agriculture and textiles.

Another fact that merits attention is that export-marketing is controlled by transnational corporations and as a result, a study found that 85 percent of cocoa beans, 75 percent of bananas, 90 percent of tobacco, 85 percent of tea, 90 percent of coffee, and 90 percent of wheat are marketed by transnational corporations.

The primary producing countries get only a fraction of the retail price of their commodities. A study by UNCTAD showed that cotton producing country's share was about 6.4 percent of the retail price of a ready-made garment (for example, if it is sold at $8 dollars a piece, cotton producing countries get only 52 cents).

All the statistics show that to help developing countries, it is necessary to design an equitable global economic system. The existing system draws cheap raw materials from developing countries and sells manufactured goods to developing countries at a much higher price.

This means G-8 nations constitute the "core" of the world economy and developing countries in the Third World including in Africa exist as the "periphery" of the global economy. This system is often called neo-colonialism. Some say that those countries who practice it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress.

Aid and loans to the African countries did not bring prosperity for their people, rather they were burdened with huge debt. In its own internal review in 2000, the World Bank found that, of the projects it had sponsored in the poorest countries, barely one in three had achieved acceptable results.

The 33 impoverished nations have accumulated debt of about $100 billion and strangely enough, during 2000-2004, there was a net transfer of financial resources of billions of dollars out of the African countries to rich nations, mostly to G-8 countries.

Another bottleneck is the time-gap between the pledge and disbursements of aid. On June 13, the leaders of five African nations (Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, and Niger) confronted President Bush in the White House and pointed out that the US was releasing aid at a very slow pace.

They expressed their bitter disappointment at the US not accelerating disbursement of aid through the Millennium Challenge Account, (the White House's primary channel for aid) to poor countries, although they fulfilled all the conditions of aid , namely commitment to democratic elections and sound economic policies.

Poverty reduction and equity go together. Although the attempt of Blair to reduce poverty in Africa through cancellation of debts is commendable, the G-8 nations do not contribute 0.7 percent of Gross National Product to aid as per UN recommendations. The US spends 0.14 percent, the lowest of any industrialised nations. To cut hunger and poverty in half by 2015 as per Millennium Development goals requires a doubling of aid budgets, a further $50 billion a year in aid.

The retired World Bank President Wolfensohn said at his last interview at the end of May: "$1,000 billion around the world on military spending and around $60 billion on development is a huge imbalance. And we think we are dealing with the issue of peace."

Accountability of leaders of African countries
Why do many people in Africa live below the living standard compared to that of the period of 60s?

Many observers believe that many of the leaders have a persistent tendency to disregard the necessity and relevance of public morality in their actions and conduct. They generally have behaved and acted as though their countries and national resources are little more than their private or family property. Internal conflict, poor governance, and anti-business policies have stymied growth in these countries.

Ian Taylor, senior lecturer in African politics at St. Andrews University in Scotland, says in his article in for the International Affairs, that the problem is not that Africa has no money but that many leaders spend it on the wrong things or embezzle it. He argued that in 2003 the Nigerian President built a stadium for $347 million, twice the country's health budget that year. The money stolen by leaders in Kenya in the 90s could have educated all the country's primary school children for a decade.

Taylor cites figures showing that between 1970 and 1996, $274 billion was taken out of 30 African countries, much of it by dictators. The amount was 145 percent of the debts those countries owed. Taylor says that he is not against debt-relief, but suggests other countries follow Denmark, which has pulled its aid out of countries it found to be corrupt, such as Malawi and Zimbabwe.

Conclusion
To reduce the poverty for people in Africa and elsewhere, it is imperative that the G-8 nations should take a holistic view of the situation. This includes not only the accountability of African leaders, but also the need of reforms of international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. Some economists go to the extent that they should be replaced by more equitable global institutions to reflect the present-day world of 191 member countries of the UN and more than six billion people.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen sees the need of reforms and argues: "The command over resources, knowledge and technology that we take for granted would be hard for our ancestors to imagine. But ours is also a world of extraordinary deprivation and staggering inequality. There is a need for change, a strong case for a far-reaching reexamination of the institutional structure of the international world."

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.