Tony Blair will head to Africa this week for his last visit as British Prime Minister after a decade in power, during which he made helping the continent a key priority.
But while widely praised for tackling poverty and debt, experts say he leaves behind a mixed legacy.
Blair is expected in Sierra Leone and South Africa, both countries’ governments have said, although his Downing Street office refused to confirm his travel arrangements for security reasons.
Families of Libyan children living with Aids said they, too, will meet the prime minister on a swing by the North African country.
The 54-year-old premier, who has described the situation in Africa as a ”scar on the conscience of the world”, has been credited by some with strong leadership and setting the agenda on Africa during his decade in power.
But British charities believe his true legacy will be getting the world’s richest countries to fulfil the promises they made at the 2005 Group of Eight summit to grant substantial debt relief and double aid to Africa by 2010.
Oxfam highlighted earlier this month that of the $50-billion pledged in aid by 2010, $30-billion was still outstanding.
Approach to Africa
As elsewhere, Blair’s approach to Africa has been driven by a strong moral philosophy, although some analysts see in it a measure of guilt for Britain’s colonial past.
He gave overseas aid a new impetus in 1997 by creating the Department for International Development (DfID), making it a Cabinet post and devoting more than 50% of its budget to sub-Saharan Africa.
He also won plaudits for sending British troops to help restore order in Sierra Leone after a bitter, 10-year civil conflict.
And while in Iraq and the Middle East, Britain stood accused of uncritical support of the United States, London was praised for its more pragmatic, less ideological approach to HIV/Aids programmes in Africa.
Many African countries still await debt cancellation, but those already written off have been due to ”bulldozing and pushing” by Britain, Christian Aid’s Africa specialist Judith Melby said.
Paul Williams, author of British Foreign Policy under New Labour 1997-2005, praised Blair’s approach to Africa, but said it had been a ”mixed bag” overall.
Arms sales
On the down side, British arms sales to Africa, in particular of a military air-traffic-control system to Tanzania plus jets and warships to South Africa, stood at odds with its claims to support aid and development.
Anti-arms trade campaigners say this and the shelving last year of a corruption probe of a BAE Systems weapons deal with Saudi Arabia ”undermine” Britain’s ability to lecture Africa on anti-graft issues.
British companies have also been involved in illegal mineral exploitation in Africa and British-made arms have been found in conflict zones.
Despite successes in Sierra Leone, Britain has shown little ability to change outcomes in places such as Zimbabwe and Darfur without the support of other African governments, Williams said.
Too much faith was placed in ”corrupt elites and leaders”, he said, highlighting how Ethiopian premier Meles Zenawi was on Blair’s Commission for Africa while at the same time clamping down hard on his political opponents.
Both Williams and Africa analyst Alex Vines raised concerns about British Foreign Office and DfID job cuts that were affecting the ability to deliver results on the ground, despite increased aid budgets.
British policy has changed little over the past 10 years. Focus is still on Africa as a humanitarian problem and the need to tackle corrupt governments and civil servants, they said.
Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, also has a strong moral commitment to Africa.
But Vines, head of the Africa Programme at the Chatham House foreign affairs institute, said he could adopt a more realistic approach to Africa instead of seeing the continent as purely a humanitarian problem.
The 2005 Group of Eight meeting raised ”overblown expectations” about what could be achieved, he said. ”We’re now returning to a more rational debate about what the West can really provide and what can really happen.” — Sapa-AFP