Health Equity Project

The meeting of the Group of 8 leaders in Gleneagles, Scotland, last week had the potential to seriously impact development in Africa, by dropping debts, focusing on crippling health crises and dramatically increasing aid. The meeting of the eight most powerful countries in the world was pregnant with the hope of progress in Africa, a topic rarely given so much coverage in the mainstream media and oft pushed from the forefront of international political discussion. Though the Summit may not have yielded all that our little health care activists’ hearts desired, it should certainly be seen as a success, and that success can largely be attributed to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

We applaud Prime Minister Blair for his courageous leadership last week and his continually admirable work with the Commission for Africa. He has been a key advocate for Africa, and has helped to make sure the United Kingdom and other G8 countries stay on target to meet the goals of the UN Millennium Declaration, which was set in 2000 and is slated to be met by developing countries by 2015.

But as Americans, we at Health Equity Project are disappointed in our own country's leader and his lack of foresight and commitment to making substantial strides in Africa. The United States pledged no new funds this past week, and it continues to spend just 0.16% of its national income on aid – the smallest percentage of any G8 country.

It is embarrassing that while other countries – like Japan, which in the eleventh hour of the Summit stepped forward to up its aid to $10 billion, or Russia, which canceled $11.3 billion worth of debt owed by African countries – sought to give more to the rest of the world, the United States hampered the Summit’s goal of bringing up aid to 0.7% of each country’s Gross Domestic Product by 2015.

To be sure, the money – $25 billion a year by 2010 – earmarked for the African continent and the $25 billion a year put aside for the rest of the developing world is something to be proud of and thankful for.

We can also take comfort in the G8 communiqué’s statements on health, which vowed to increase access to HIV/AIDS drugs, to continue funding the campaign to eradicate polio and to allocate $1.5 billion to combating malaria, an effort which could reach 85% of vulnerable populations.

But this is not the time for the international community to pat itself on the back. Concerts and press conferences alone won’t “make poverty history,” if that is even a goal that could be achieved.

Foreign aid is not the panacea for all of Africa’s problems, and lip service certainly won’t save lives.

We need to make sure that our government and the other seven member countries are held accountable for what was promised last week. We also need to continue to push for other initiatives that will promote sustainable development in African countries, like making trade fairer by eliminating farming subsidies for developed countries, subsidies that make it impossible for African industries to compete in the world market.

We can only hope that the attention Africa has received in the past couple weeks is not a flash in the pan, but even more than the attention, we hope that the commitment to the continent is real.

We also appreciate the Summit’s recognizing that peace and stability are integral to development and hope that G8 countries follow through in their commitment to conflict resolution as laid out in the communiqué.

Unequivocally, the United States has a unique opportunity and responsibility as the most powerful country in the world.