Madam, - An interesting couple of weeks lie ahead for British prime minister Tony Blair as he sees if his gamble of supporting President Bush in Iraq will pay off with US acceptance of his plan on African debt relief and long-term reform.
Unfortunately it seems once again that Mr Bush and the US Congress are putting the economic status quo of the West ahead of any long-term improvement in Africa. Instead we are likely to see more financial aid being handed over to alleviate poverty and starvation - which in itself is to be welcomed but will not remove the long-term causes of these problems.
Some contributors to this page have pointed to the weakness of African leadership and the lack of democracy in many African countries. In most cases this is a result of the West weakening Africa by turning a blind eye to the activities of multinational corporations on the continent. These corporations have undermined any chance of self-sufficiency in Africa by funding despotic regimes which allow the exploitation of natural resources there. Western governments also play their part by continuing to subsidise Western agriculture and industry while simultaneously calling for globalisation of markets. All the West does is ease its own conscience by increasing charity donations. Of course Mr Bush is not interested in real reform; it is not in the interests of his backers.
Ironically, figures for global militarisation published yesterday show an increase to over $1 trillion dollars for 2004, more than half of that in the US defence budget alone. - Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Blackrock,
Cork.
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Madam, - Dr L.F. Lacey (June 7th) uses a single quotation from the Commission for Africa report to argue against ill-conceived "solutions" to poverty. He goes on, however, to reduce the cause of Africa's problems to one factor, bad government, and implies that dealing with this alone is the solution.
The Commission for Africa report clearly shows that multiple interlocking factors have caused African underdevelopment.
In turn, the solution it proposes involves a coherent set of interlocking measures. These include more and better aid, debt relief, fairer trade, as well as action on improved governance.
Dr Lacey's quotation from the executive summary of the report, that "without progress in governance, all other reforms will have limited impact", should be taken in the context of the paragraphs which precede and follow it.
Progress is already being made toward democracy and better governance, rendering generalisations about an entire continent increasingly inaccurate. Rich nations have a role to play in helping to build the capacity of African governmental systems by making aid more accountable and by refusing to be complicit in corruption.
It is wrong to say that past development aid has not made a difference. The full report outlines a plethora of evidence which supports the demands of the Make Poverty History campaign and Bob Geldof's Live8, and shows why they are morally compelling (the report is available at www.commissionforafrica.org). - Yours, etc,
DANIEL DUNNE,
Meadow Park,
Churchtown,
Dublin 14.