Richard D. North on the G8

By Alex Singleton | 22 June 2005

Richard D. North has been writing a series of challenging articles on the Social Affairs Unit Blog on the subject of the G8 summit and Africa. Here is an extract from one:

It is possible that the next generation or two will see a new, determined and brave middle class assert itself in African countries. If it does, it is possible that Africa can travel down the conventional Western route toward kind and well-off societies.

It is an open question how much Western aid and pressure can help this process (and whether Africa needs pressure now, aid later). Measured debt forgiveness may be helpful, if it is done well and can survive allegations of "post-colonialism". Aid for physical and commercial infrastructure may help: but this might have to be "big project" stuff (roads, dams, stock exchanges) which campaigners don't like.

In the meantime, it is clear that Mssrs Brown and Blair's "Marshall Plan" for Africa (the main political proposal to come out of Blair's Commission for Africa) is deeply-flawed, not least because of its superficial attractiveness. The US's Marshall Plan for Europe was devoted to rebuilding countries which were hungry for economic growth and had underlying structures, for all that these had been bruised by war. As both Robert Skidelsky and Richard Dowden have argued, Africa does not yet have the economic or institutional elite that's required.