Somalians await a food delivery by the World Food Programme (WFP) at Marka, 100 km south of Mogadishu, in 2007. Three years after the end of the G8 summit in Gleneagles in Britain, African countries are still complaining of delays disbursing promised aid by the world's richest countries and are now calling for new safeguards at the forthcoming meeting slated for July 7 to 9 in Japan.(Chinese media/AFP FilePhoto)
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On Tuesday, the African Union (AU) summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, called on the word's eight industrialized nations to "keep their promises to support African development" in a statement that was also signed by the United Nations and other international organizations.
"African leaders expect the G8 countries to keep their promises as the credibility of international commitments is at stake here," AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping told reporters at the end of the Egypt summit.
In 2005 at Gleneagles, the G8 countries, which include the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia, pledged to double aid to Africa by 2010.
Since then, several revisions have seen this figure reduced to about 21.8 billion dollars, and, according to the UN and the AU, only a quarter of the initially promised sum has been paid to date.
Meanwhile, there are several voices that have emerged to demand new safeguards before the next G8 summit, which will be attended by representatives from eight African countries: Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
"The first thing one would expect from the next G8 summit is the fulfillment of commitments and promises that have already been made," El-Hadj Amadou Sall, spokesman for the Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, was quoted as saying in a recent interview.
"A lot of commitments were made, and even promises that have been quantified. If they were vague commitments, we could have understood, but figures were given," according to President Wade’ spokesman.
In April, the G8 ministers responsible for development met in Tokyo and confirmed their willingness to increase aid to the world's poor countries.
But several organizations such as ONE, a non-governmental organization run by Irish-born rock star Bono, and the African Progress Panel monitoring committee for Africa, which was chaired by for UN chief Kofi Annan, have underlined that there is urgency for donor nations to take actions so as to meet their commitments.
There no indication that the promises made by the G8 countries "will be kept... They must urgently mobilize funds to achieve these goals," the Annan-led committer warned recently and at the same time demanded "clear deadlines" with regard to disbursements.
"There has been a marked decline in the amount of direct aid coming to Africa from the G8 countries," Auriel Niemack, an expert with the South African Institute of International Relations, said in a recent newspaper article.
"At a time when the price of oil and food has led to a crisis, we can be sure that there will probably be more important topics on agenda in Japan," said the expert, arguing that Africa was being heavily penalized by the rising oil and food prices.
Speaking from Tokyo on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that rich countries should "fulfill their Gleneagles commitment," even as concerns continue to grow following rumors that there would be reduced commitments for Africa, without even set targets in terms of development aid.
"They have the capacity, that have the resources and I hope the leaders will demonstrate their political will," Ban said.
Reports reaching here said the G8 leaders will meet representatives from African countries on the first day of their summit during which African countries will seek further promises of the rich nations to honor their commitments.
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