The summit ended with the leaders of the world's wealthiest eight countries signing the biggest aid deal in history for Africa. According to the agreement, development aid to Africa would be doubled to $48 billion by the year 2010, and debt would be written off for the 18 most indebted African countries. This alone counts as a considerable achievement.

Other positive developments were agreements to tackle diseases such as HIV/Aids and malaria, and to provide $3 billion a year for the next three years for the Palestinian Authority to help build up institutions.

However, there were still some disappointments with respect to the summit. The first was that even though dialogue on climate change has come some way, the US is still dragging its feet on any kind of commitment, and nothing concrete was agreed to in terms of the environment.

Similarly there was nothing solid agreed to in terms of eliminating agricultural subsidies by the G-8 nations (and the rest of the EU) which would have been of far more help to the African countries (and the rest of us) than increased aid and debt write off.

It is estimated that if Africa boosted its share of world exports by just 1 percent worldwide, it would earn an additional $70 billion: far outstripping even the generous amount agreed to at Gleneagles. Finally, it should not be forgotten that far more of the world's poor live in Asia than in Africa, and that this part of the world should not be neglected.

Nevertheless, the agreement reached at Gleneagles represents a real watershed for the world. It shows that the wealthier countries are finally willing to accept responsibility for alleviating poverty and acting for the common global good. No doubt they could have gone even further in their commitments, but there is also no doubt that the summit should be seen as a very positive development.