Tony Blair and his Africa Pledges

Early in his tenure, outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a high-profile commitment to reducing the excruciating poverty afflicting hundreds of millions in Africa, keeping it on the media’s front burner by numerous high-level initiatives. The best-known of these was his dedicating to the cause the 2005 G8 summit he hosted in Gleneagles. The issue was again centre stage last month at the G8 summit in Germany last month.

But so complete is Africa’s marginalization in global affairs that virtually none of the hundreds of assessments being published of Tony Blair’s 10 year rule even mention whether he succeeded in his goal.

Mr. Blair did have one significant success, in Sierra Leone, where his courageous intervention helped end a vicious civil war. Otherwise, he failed Africa. So weak was the much-fanfared commitment that Blair extracted from the G8 at Gleneagles in 2005 that figures released last month showed that rather than expanding substantially, aid to Africa declined the following year. The outlook on trade, which is more important to African fortunes than aid, is even grimmer.

British policy has created vast amounts of wealth for national and multinational elites, but many African economists believe these policies in the 1980s and 1990s set back Africa severely. There are no easy fixes for Africa. But there will be quicker dividends if relieving the poverty’s most open wounds is made an uncompromising national priority. Not everything that can be done is impossibly complex or expensive, such as providing public toilets, drains and clean water supply.

Only the continent’s own leaders and people can correct its rawest suffering. Donors have an important but minor role to play. But they must get this role right. That includes recognizing that what Africa needs most of all is space to formulate its own policies. To determine what these might be, they need to radically alter their approach and engage first and foremost with the grass roots.

Despite all the donor talk of needing to hear Africa’s voice, it is rarely heard. It’s the statements of its leaders that they mostly hear, not the aspirations and cries of its people.

[Excerpt of an article by Salim Lone, spokesman for the UN mission in Iraq in 2003, now a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya]