--launches Make Poverty History Campaign in Canada

[Guest guest]

Statement issued by , UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa,

on the occasion of the launch in Canada of the ³Make Poverty History²

campaign, at a press conference in Ottawa, February 11th, 2005, 10:00 a.m.

For immediate release

The ³Make Poverty History² campaign is rooted in the conviction that 2005

can be the turning point in the fight to eliminate poverty from the face of

the earth. There are one billion, two hundred million people living in

absolute poverty world-wide, and nearly half of them are in Africa. From my

perspective, the mesh of poverty and HIV/AIDS is the deadliest combination

on the planet, and there¹s not the slightest possibility of confronting

poverty so long as AIDS runs its savage course.

To make poverty history requires making AIDS history. To achieve both means

that the western world, the G7 in particular, must deliver on the host of

commitments they have made. Alas, it¹s not happening. Just look at what

transpired last weekend.

The G7 couldn¹t get its act together. The G7 Finance Ministers met in the

UK, and failed, yet again, to come to agreement on the cancellation of

African debt. It was a devastating blow to the continent.

For several years now, ever since it became clear that the Heavily Indebted

Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative was a grand design that couldn¹t do the

job, the G7 nations have been discussing alternative ways to significantly

reduce or eliminate African debt. To that end, all G7 countries have reduced

bilateral debt in part or in whole, but they remain stymied on the debt that

is held by the International Financial Institutions, that is to say the

World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development

Bank. It is a debt that continues to exact a hugely destructive burden of

payments from African countries.

Far more flows out of Africa than flows into Africa. Looked at historically,

between 1970 and 2002, the poorest African countries received $294 billion

dollars in loans, paid back $298 billion in principal and interest, and at

the end of the process, still owed more than $200 billion! This is

mathematics conceived by Dr. Strangelove.

The pressure on the G7, magnificently applied by the Jubilee Coalition and

its allies in the NGO community, has forced the financial aristocrats of the

donor world to make promise after promise about dealing with African debt.

In fact, the parade of promises is unrelenting. Virtually every gathering of

G7 leaders or Finance Ministers since the turn of the century has held the

prospect of change. On every occasion we get a twitch in the right

direction, but all the twitches in the world do not a cancellation make.

Last weekend was perhaps the nadir in the process; a bitter disappointment.

Governments and commentators alike are attempting to put a good face on what

happened, but the truth is that the G7, ostensibly on the path of debt

cancellation and increased foreign aid, failed abysmally on both counts.

The US disagreed with the UK plan, and the UK disagreed with the American

plan. Canada disagreed with both. France and Japan each advanced alternative

ways to raise money for debt relief and foreign aid, but those designs were

unacceptable to any of the other G7 countries. It was a potpourri of good

intentions gone wrong.

It must be galling for African governments. It seems to take the G7 no

effort to cancel huge chunks of Iraqi debt, or to instantly fashion an offer

of moratorium on the servicing of debt for the countries devastated by the

Tsunami. But when it comes to Africa, everything takes forever.

It has to end. If the burden of debt service were lifted, African countries

would have a significant boost in resources a boost to address poverty, or

put children into school, or purchase insecticide-treated bed nets for

malaria, or fight the eviscerating contagion of HIV/AIDS. Every time the

clock is turned back on progress towards debt relief, Africa¹s prospects of

reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are dealt another crippling

setback.

What worries me greatly in all of this is the position of the Global Fund

for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It is clear that debt is but one aspect

of a larger picture of increased official development assistance. The

British Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary-General of the United

Nations and Sachs, author of the plan to achieve the MDGs, have said

time and time again that foreign aid must be doubled. There was no such

instinct in evidence last weekend. And if both debt relief and increased

foreign aid are contentious, or not yet in sight, then contributions to the

Global Fund are similarly in jeopardy. And if the Global Fund, already in

need of billions to meet its anticipated targets, falls short, then we will

not put three million people living with AIDS into treatment this year, or

millions more next year, and the great plan to confound the pandemic in

Africa will come crashing to the ground.

Surely, the G7 can bring itself to turn the tide. For twenty years, dating

back to the Special Session of the United Nations in 1986, when the first

contemporary compact with the continent was fashioned, the G7 countries have

repeatedly defaulted on their commitments to Africa. It really is a shameful

record. This next G7 conference in July must be seen as the moment of

redemption.

In some ways, everything rests with the leadership of the United Kingdom.

They will chair the G7, they will chair the EU, they will chair the

replenishment conference of the Global Fund and they will issue the report

from the Commission on Africa appointed by the UK Government. All of this is

auspicious because there¹s no denying the extraordinary commitment of Tony

Blair and Gordon Brown to Africa.

What is not auspicious, however, is the divide between language and reality.

The UK speaks of debt cancellation when what has been promised is

part-payment of debt service for ten years, and then the intolerable

financial burden will return, as before, to Africa. Canada has done exactly

the same the Minister of Finance talks of ³cancellation² when the word

simply doesn¹t apply. The United States talks of cancellation, but with

numerous --- and thus far, unacceptable ---conditions. The UK is promoting

an International Financial Facility, supported by France, Germany and Italy,

but disavowed by the United States, Japan and Canada. Some members of the G7

are promoting the sale of IMF gold to cover the costs of debt relief, but

others, including Canada, are resisting. The French and Japanese are

advocating a tax on international financial transactions and/or airline

travel, but the reception is cool to the point of frigidity.

This is not a prognosis for success.

In the meantime, Africa¹s future is ticking away. The continent has been

betrayed on commitments of foreign aid, on cancellation of debt, on the

promise of a new international trading regimen, and it has yet to recover

from the damage done by structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and

1990s, imposed by the International Financial Institutions.

The G7, meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July, knows what they have to

do. The world is truly hoping for a breakthrough. Millions of African lives

hang in the balance.

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