British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal organisation to spearhead development activities in Africa issued a call on Thursday for massive international cooperation to assist the continent.
In an interim report, the Commission for Africa produced a lengthy list of areas needing action, ranging from fairer trade to concerted efforts to end conflict.
The document is the product of a meeting of the commission last month in Ethiopia, and is intended to set out the goals for a full report on Africa’s future to be released early next year.
The commission brings together 17 international dignitaries, nine of them African, ranging from Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to Irish pop star and charity organiser Bob Geldof, as well as Blair himself.
It was established by Blair in February 2004 as the centrepiece of his aim to make development in Africa a key objective in 2005, when Britain holds the rotating presidencies of both the European Union and the Group of Eight industrialised nations’ club.
In an impassioned speech in Addis Ababa during the commission’s meeting, Blair called for massive international support for Africa, describing his personal crusade for the continent as ”the one noble cause worth fighting for”.
Thursday’s report, styled a ”consultation document”, stresses the need for immediate and urgent action.
”Delay will make future problems more difficult and some of them irreversible. Strong action now can see Africa move to self-sustaining growth and development that will make aid less necessary,” it argues.
”In the past, initiatives have been held back by lack of political will. The year 2005 is a special opportunity to create that political will.”
Short on specific measures, the report lists a series of areas in which the most urgent action is needed, such as improved government transparency and less corruption.
Better methods are also needed to prevent and resolve wars, it says, calling for support for the United Nations and African Union in peacekeeping duties.
Stemming the spread of Aids is also crucial, it says.
”The full enormity of the situation has not yet hit us. If big investments are not made now, HIV/Aids will further ravage the social fabric,” the report says.
The commission additionally pledges ”vigorously” to tackle Western agricultural subsidies and tariffs that disadvantage African farmers, and to push for further debt relief measures.
However, the commission — which called for further input from Africa and elsewhere ahead of the completion of the full report — also stresses the immensity of the task ahead.
”Among the conundrums with which the commission is wrestling is that of how to arrive at solutions which are sufficiently radical to make a real difference to the people of Africa, but which are not so radical that they are deemed politically undeliverable by donor nations,” it notes. — Sapa-AFP