confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
The Blair Africa Project
Patrick Smith
On 11 March, a week AFTER Africa Confidential published an exclusive report on the main findings, British Prime Minister Tony Blair launched his Commission for Africa report.
Blair insisted that he would reform British policy to meet the Africa Commission recommendations, so we examine the areas where he would have change course:
* on security, Britain would have to give serious support to the African Union peacekeepers in Darfur; the plans for an International arms trade treaty would mean boosting Whitehall's capacity to investigate and act against the British-based arms dealers selling into Africa's war zones;
* on multinational companies operating in Africa's war zones, Whitehall would have to improve the Department of Trade and Industry's capacity to monitor companies, compliance with OECD and other guidelines;
* on the poaching of Africa's health workers, Britain is one of the worst offenders and would have to invest substantially in training the one million new health workers which the Commission report says Africa needs by 2015;
* on immediately ending subsidies on cotton and sugar, Britain would have to start by pressuring the USA to comply with a WTO ruling that its cotton subsidies are illegal;
* and on debt, the Commission argues that all Africa's low-income countries - including Nigeria which owes US$34 billion - should be eligible for up to 100 per cent debt write offs but many of Britain's fellow G8 states refuse to finance this.
Just five days after Blair launched his Commission report in London, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo swept into town with Finance Minister Ngozi Iweala and a large retinue. Before President Obasanjo addressed the august dignitaries of the Commonwealth, he breakfasted with a group of journalists at the Commonwealth Club opposite the Nigerian High Commission in Trafalgar Square. Obasanjo praised the Blair Commission heartily but said the real test would be implementation. He reserved his main complaint for the fees that London lawyers are charging the Nigerian government in their efforts to track down the state's wealth, stolen by the military regime under General Sani Abacha.