GLENEAGLES (Scotland), July 8: World leaders agreed on Friday to more than double aid for Africa to $50 billion, presenting the deal as a message of hope that countered the hatred behind the London bomb attacks.
The Group of Eight also pledged to raise up to three billion dollars in the next few years for the Palestinian Authority to boost chances for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Mr Blair announced the effort after summit talks with counterparts from the Group of Eight industrial powers as Israel prepares to begin a withdrawal next month from the Gaza Strip and a small portion of the West Bank.
“The G8 ... agreed a substantial package of help for the Palestinian Authority, amounting to up to three billion dollars in the years to come,” Mr Blair said. The decision was taken so that “two states, Israel and Palestine, two peoples and two religions can live side by side in peace,” he added.
A summit statement said “we now have a real opportunity to advance peace in the Middle East” and welcomed Israel’s planned withdrawal as a “courageous step.”
Mr Blair, who had been determined to focus on African poverty despite Thursday’s attacks, said: “We speak today in the shadow of terrorism but it will not obscure what we came here to achieve.”
Flanked by fellow leaders of the G8 and seven of their African counterparts on the steps of the Gleneagles hotel in Scotland, Mr Blair said: “It isn’t the end of poverty in Africa — but it is the hope that it can be ended.”.
The deal was broadly welcomed by African leaders and some high-profile activists including singer Bob Geldof, who organised the massive Live 8 rock concerts around the world to pressure the G8. They said it could save countless lives.
“I see there are encouraging signs that the continent’s problems are going to be addressed realistically and acceptably by the G8 and Prime Minister Tony Blair,” said Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the chairman of the African Union.
But others said the deal fell far short of the hopes of millions inspired by the global Make Poverty History campaign and the concerts.
CLIMATE DEAL: The G8 leaders also agreed to start talks on global warming with major emerging economies such as India and China, whose rapid development is propelling them into the front rank of fossil fuel users. Environmentalists said the declaration was a missed opportunity to take concrete action on climate change.
But French President Jacques Chirac agreed with Blair that the deal was a step forward as it brought the United States, which refuses to sign up to cuts in heat-trapping greenhouse gases backed by other G8 nations, back into the quest for an international consensus.
“The deal we reached does not go as far as we would have wished but it re-establishes indispensable dialogue and cooperation,” he said.
On the world economy, the leaders called for more investment in refining as well as greater access for foreign investors to oil-rich states to tackle record high oil prices.
They pledged to end farm export subsidies — a major demand of African nations who complain that rich countries are forcing their farmers out of business. But they did not set a date.
They also called for renewed efforts to conclude a new phase of world trade liberalisation by the end of next year.
Not all development specialists are convinced that a massive aid boost is the answer to Africa’s problems. Some question whether African states can absorb such a large increase in a short time.
Russia, the G8 odd man out because of its comparatively low living standards and Western criticism of its democratic record, takes over the presidency of the group for the first time from next January and will host the annual summit in St Petersburg.
President Vladimir Putin said Russia’s key themes would be energy and education. He struck a conciliatory note over the prospect of anti-globalisation protesters.
“The problems that they raise deserve attention and discussions. I do not rule out working with anti-globalisation activists,” he said.—Agencies
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