Commission for Africa

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The Commission for Africa , also known as the Blair Commission for Africa, was an initiative established by the British government to examine and provide impetus for development in Africa. Initiated in Spring 2004, its objectives include the generation of new ideas for development and to deliver implementation of existing international commitements towards Africa.[1] African leaders form a majority of the 17 commissioners.

The report of the Commission was released in March 2005.[2] The publication was welcomed by international agencies, who also urged caution. "The proof of the Africa Commission’s worth will be in the political will and energy it manages to drum up to turn its recommendations into reality," said a spokesperson for [[Oxfam."[3]

The Commission and its report had a clear impact upon the public debate in the UK, and to some extent elsewhere, on how development in Africa might be accelerated. At the G8 summit of world leaders in Gleneagles, Scotland that year, the report was seen as a blueprint for action by the G8. The Gleneagles summit pledged what the Commission report had asked for in terms of a doubling of aid and significant extensions of mulitateral debt relief. But it failed to deliver what the Commission had demanded on trade - including an end to agricultural export subsidies by rich nations and end to 'reciprocity' in world trade negotiations.

The summit did, however, promise to implement 50 of the Commission's 90 less high-profile recommendations including: training 20,000 more African peacekeepers; tightening controls on the trade in small arms; working more closely with the African Union and its New Partnership for Africa (Nepad) programme to make African governments more accountable to their people; pressing rich nations to ratify the UN Convention on Corruption; putting in place measures to return cash looted by dictators from Western banks to the legitimate owners; and using export credits to clamp down on Western companies who pay bribes.

After the summit however the profile of the report faded and it is as yet unclear whether the Commission recommendations which were pledged at Gleneagles will be implemented.