Lying Africa

This baby [link] comes from the poorest nation on Earth, Niger.

NEARLY two years ago, an 86-year-old man shuffled to the front of a stage in Johannesburg and challenged people to "wipe poverty from the Earth". Nelson Mandela, watched by an estimated billion people as he addressed the 2005 Live8 concert, called on world leaders gathering for the G8 summit to show commitment, to not make hollow promises. "It is within your power to avoid a genocide of humanity."


As he spoke, on the other side of the African continent — 5000 kilometres north and eight borders away — the people of the poorest nation on the planet, Niger, withered in devastating drought. Subsistence farmers living in one-room huts without power or water, it is unlikely that many of them heard the words of Mandela or the impassioned pleas of rock-star activists Bono and Bob Geldof or, a few days later, the pledges of the world's wealthiest nations to provide an extra $US50 billion ($A67 billion) for aid, half of it to Africa.

The then UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, hailed the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, as "the best summit ever for Africa". British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "It isn't the end of poverty in Africa, but it is the hope that it can be ended." Cynics, or perhaps realists, muttered that hopes were being lifted too high on a wave of goodwill and fine talk.

Two weeks later, senior UN officials were accusing the world of dithering on Niger, putting 3 million people at risk of starvation. British National Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, could only concede it was true. "It isn't good enough," he admitted. "We need to be quicker and more effective in dealing with this, and we have to learn the lessons."

Two years later, Niger is not in the emergency room but remains in a critical, chronic state, still with the sad distinction of being the world's poorest state, still without the hardware and systems that might fortify its population against the next inevitable locust plague, drought or flood. As a benchmark by which to measure lessons learned or aid delivered in the two years since the G8 hype, there is little to celebrate in Niger. "Investment in infrastructure is the key element in the fight against poverty," says UNICEF's Niger representative, Akhil Iyer. Yet that investment — in roads, schools, dams, health centres, bridges, irrigation, in the hard slog of sustainable, structural, long-term relief — remains insufficient to bring relief.

Africa will be on the agenda, but only just, when G8 leaders meet in the German resort of Heiligendamm for their annual summit next Wednesday. Climate change is the hot topic, while Africa only made the program after last-minute lobbying of German Chancellor Angela Merkel by Blair and Bono.



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