G8:A PANEL of prominent figures led by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, and which includes Bob Geldof, is warning that the G8 industrialised countries must step up their assistance to Africa or risk breaking their promise to double aid by 2010.
In a report released in London yesterday morning, the Africa Progress Panel describes a "mixed picture" of G8 progress toward meeting aid targets set over the years in annual summits.
While the industrialised countries have eliminated a considerable amount of African debt, the continent has done less well on direct aid: Without major increases "most countries will be well below" the collective target of $130 billion in aid by 2010, according to the panelists.
"We are in a situation where it is increasingly clear that traditional budgetary resources are too overstretched to meet aid pledges, unless innovative financing mechanism are promptly put in place," the report states.
The study comes as the major industrialised countries are preparing to meet next month in Hokkaido, amid pressure to act more aggressively on world problems, including Africa aid, global warming, international corruption and the sharp increase in food prices.
The Africa Progress Panel was put together by former British prime minister Tony Blair to focus world leaders' attention on keeping their promises to Africa.
In addition to Annan, the other members of the panel include former US Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin, rock singer and activist Bob Geldof, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and Nigeria's former president, Olusegun Obasanjo.
This is the group's first report, and it focuses heavily on skyrocketing food prices, which are causing unrest and suffering across the continent.
The panelists say the crisis threatens to reverse considerable recent progress made in reducing poverty, tackling Aids and raising economic growth.
"Unless some way can be found to halt and reverse the current trend in food prices there will be a significant increase in hunger, malnutrition and infant and child mortality," the panelists wrote.
"Many countries are already experiencing the reversal of decades of economic progress and 100 million people are being pushed back into absolute poverty."
The panel has a variety of recommendations, including increasing emergency aid to the World Food Program, lifting agriculture tariffs and making new investments to raise agriculture productivity.
The members urged the G8 to take a second look at the subsidies for biofuels that have helped convert land for producing food into land for energy.
"The response in food supply to the current crisis will likely take some time to produce results ... and must receive sustained levels of support," the report said.
Annan said the focus of the upcoming G8 summit ought to be fulfilling the commitments the industrialised world has already made to Africa.
Citing recent economic gains, he said: "All this could be rolled back by the food crisis, a lack of follow-through of promises made...
"What we really ask of the G8 is not to make new promises but to meet the promises that have already been made." -(LA Times-Washington Post service)