David Pallister, Patrick Smith and Larry Elliott
The Guardian
March 5, 2005

Tony Blair will next week demand a radical shake-up of the west’s approach to the world’s poorest continent when his year-long Africa Commission calls for a doubling of aid, the dismantling of trade barriers, the writing off of debts and immediate action to stamp out
corruption.

In what is being billed as the most serious analysis of Africa’s problems for a generation, the prime minister will use the launch of next Friday’s report to urge a new partnership between developed and developing countries.

The report’s recommendations – likely to be the subject of hard bargaining between Britain and her G8 allies in the run-up to the Gleneagles summit in July ‚Äì include tough measures to tackle bribery by western multinationals in addition to huge injections of cash to fund health, education and improvements to Africa’s rudimentary infrastructure.

In a challenge to the European Union and the US ahead of this December’s meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Hong Kong, the report says rich countries “must agree to immediately eliminate trade-distorting support to cotton and sugar and commit by 2010 to end all export subsidies and all trade-distorting support in agriculture.”

It also endorses Mr Brown’s aid proposal for an international financing facility, which was rejected by the US and Canada at the February G7 summit.

Some of the proposals throw into sharp relief the British government’s recent reluctance to enforce policies dealing with the exploitation of resources and stolen public funds.

Critics, including members of the all-party committee on genocide, have pointed out that the Department of Trade has been unenthusiastic about the investigation of allegations by the UN of alleged improper exploitation of resources in the Congo.

Full Story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/mar/05/uk.internationalaidanddevelopment [PDFver here]