ABSTRACT

In October 2001, British Prime Minister Blair, while addressing the Labour Party Conference, described Africa as ‘the scar on the conscience of the world’. He pledged to make ‘Africa’ a foreign and development policy priority for his second term of administration. Over the next five years, the Blair Government promoted an increase in overseas aid spending, debt reduction and trade reform in an attempt to promote the Millennium Development Goals, which include reducing extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015. With his own unique brand of personalized diplomacy, Prime Minister Blair used the G8 summit in July 2005 to push for further progress towards debt forgiveness and overseas aid increases. Unfortunately, the London bombings on 7 July rather overshadowed the substance of the summit, and critics contended that the febrile announcements on debt cancellation rather over-egged the scale of the gesture – the deal only includes some of the debts of some poor countries. It will release about $1 billion a year to combat poverty, compared to the minimum of $10 billion debt cancellation per year needed to help developing countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals. However, a new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has pledged to keep this issue high on the international agenda.