G-8 commitments to Africa unfulfilled

WENDY JOHNSON
GUEST COLUMNIST

As the sun rose over Germany and the leaders of the wealthy world settled into
comfortable leather chairs at the G-8 meeting, they continued to sidestep their
unfulfilled foreign aid commitments.

The same sun beat down on thousands of Africans who waited in long lines in
front of dilapidated clinics to see a nurse or a community health worker. They
dare not hope to see the doctor, since there are fewer than five for every
100,000 people in most of Africa. The lines have not diminished, nor have
conditions improved since the G-8 meeting two years ago when, with much
fanfare, rich countries made commitments to increase aid to those who are still
waiting.

Since the Gleneagles, Scotland, meeting, aid levels actually decreased. Even
more shocking, because of restrictive International Monetary Fund policies,
less than 30 cents of every new aid dollar goes to improve public
infrastructure -- the rest is funneled into paying down debt and building up
reserves. The IMF's strict fiscal prescription is largely dictated by those
same leaders seated at the table in Germany.

Lost in the hand-wringing over broken promises, aid effectiveness and scarce
human resources is the fact that the G-8 could dramatically improve those
conditions if it cared enough to exchange greed for compassion.

Take off the handcuffs and let countries spend aid as intended: building public
infrastructure and hiring doctors, nurses and teachers. The IMF imposes
austerity measures on almost every Sub-Saharan African country, including
restrictions on the number of health care workers a country can hire, and how
much money it can spend building schools and hospitals. The IMF policies are
controlled by the rich G-8 countries and could be reversed if the will to help
Africa superseded the desire to maintain policies that favor rich countries and
penalize poor ones.

Second, fulfill the promises made in Gleneagles to double aid to $50 billion by
2010 and to revive the long-ignored goal of 0.7 percent of GDP as the minimum
aid threshold. To put those paltry numbers in perspective, economist Jeffery
Sachs noted that Wall Street bonuses reached $24 billion last year, and U.S.
spending on the war in Iraq exceeds $100 billion. Even so, only Japan and
Britain are on track to meet their commitments, while other G-8 members all lag
behind.

Third, direct aid where it will do the most good -- building public
infrastructure and improving developing world capacity to provide its own
health care and education work force. Too much aid is dissipated, expensively
and inefficiently, in paying high-priced "technical assistance;" or it is
returned to rich countries by prohibiting local purchasing. More support should
go directly to the governments of poor countries to build basic public systems
rather than being limited to specific projects or diseases.

Here in the U.S., the recently introduced Africa Health Capacity Investment Act
is cause for hope. If passed, the program would support improving local African
human resources for health. The Bush administration's recent call to renew AIDS
funding is a start, but falls short. We have learned nothing from past
successes eradicating smallpox and polio -- defeat one disease and another will
take its place. The only way to sustainably improve the health of Africans is
to invest in lasting local health and education systems.

While aid stagnated over the past two years, 1 million women died in childbirth
and 8 million infants died in their first month of life. The G-8 commitments
are modest in the face of an alarmingly expanding gap between the haves and
have-nots. The problems are solvable, if the world's rich leaders can keep
their promises to the thousands of Africans still waiting in line.

Dr. Wendy Johnson is the director of New Initiatives for Health Alliance
International, a Seattle-based international health non-profit. She had lived
and worked in Africa. Contact: wjohns@....

_______________________________________________