Myles Wickstead, (Visiting Professor, Open University and formerly Head of the Secretariat, Commission for Africa).

Has there been any change? In a word – the answer is ‘Probably’. The truth is that it is too early to tell – but I remain optimistic that we shall look back from the vantage point of 2015 and conclude that 2005 was the year when the conditions were put in place for Africa to begin
making significant progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). And those of us involved with the Commission for Africa will feel that it played a major role in creating the political will to bring that about.

The UK dual presidencies of the G8 and EU provided the opportunity to ensure that Africa was at the top of the international agenda. But this would not have been a
credible initiative unless Africa had itself demonstrated that it was taking strong steps to take charge of its own destiny. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development
(NEPAD) is an African initiative. So is the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). So is the African Union. In spite of the fact that Africa on the whole tends to get a rather
negative press (and of course disasters are more newsworthy than progress), all the evidence suggests that there is better governance and improved peace and security in Africa. Not everywhere; but the overall trend is positive. Under those circumstances it is possible to create the conditions required to move towards achieving the MDGs.

This progress within Africa provides the best possible justification for support from the international community. The Commission for Africa (CfA) Report sets out how that
support should be structured. It must be comprehensive, and follow the priorities of Africa’s NEPAD initiative. It must get behind Africa’s own efforts to improve governance
and peace and security; to develop capacity, health and education systems; to encourage economic growth (including through support for infrastructure development
and trade capacity). It should provide increased development assistance, but also do it better. It should tackle the debt issue. And it should address those distorting trade policies and agricultural subsidies that are neither in the interests of African producers nor of western consumers and taxpayers.

So, looking back from close to the year’s end, how did we do? The European Union got us off to a promising start in May with the commitment by the established member
states to reach the 0.7% target for official development assistance by 2015 (with a significant target of 0.33% for the new members over the same time period), with half
of the increase being for Africa. The outcome of the G8 Summit was positive – more positive than any of us would have dared to hope for a year earlier. The Communiqué
followed the logic and argument of the CfA Report very closely. Some of the recommendations (for example, on support for tertiary education and the development
of scientific and research capacity) lost the rather specific figures contained in the CfA Report; some of them (for example, on the importance of an Africa Media Development
Facility) got lost altogether. We didn’t get a timetable for the phasing out of distorting agricultural subsidies. But, crucially, two-thirds of the recommendations were endorsed
in some form or another; the deal on debt (subsequently endorsed at the IMF/World Bank Annual meetings) was a huge step forward; and the agreement to double aid to
Africa over the next five years, seen by many as simply unattainable, happened.

The Millennium Review Summit was crucial in embedding those commitments, and in reinforcing the links between development, security and rights which were implicit
throughout the CfA Report and which the UN Secretary General had articulated so strongly. The Summit gave additional legitimacy to the approach and recommendations
of the Commission for Africa.

There remains one big challenge ahead for 2005, which is to ensure that the Ministerial Round of the Doha trade negotiations gets off to a good start in Hong Kong in
December. And the challenge after that will be to ensure that the international community delivers on the commitments it has made. There is increasing evidence of a
broad, loose but powerful coalition in support of this agenda - NGOs, the private sector, politicians, academics, pop stars and the media. They must continue to hold
Governments to their commitments on Africa – commitments which the British Prime Minister asked his G8 colleagues to sign in front of the television cameras. It turned a piece of paper into a sort of contract between those leaders and the watching public. 2005 has seen a potential step-change in the nature of the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world. The commitments are there; the contract has been signed;
and now it must be honoured.

- The trade meeting in Hong Kong was disappointing, and everyone must now work hard to secure at least some progress.
- The debt package agreed last year is being implemented. We must all hold our political leaders to their commitments to more and better aid.
- But 2005 was not just about aid, trade and debt. We are fewer than 3 months into 2006, and signs are quite good that there is already progress on other recommendations of the CfA Report.
- These include those picked up by the Gleneagles Communique (for example, on ratifying the UN Convention against Corruption and developing an Arms Trade Treaty); but also some not included there (for example, on developing an Africa Media Development Facility).
- On other areas where the CfA recommended major resource transfers, good progress - eg Infrastrucure Conmsortium has met twice, and now discussing financing of major projects with NEPAD.
- So there is real progress, and all of us in our different ways must ensure that progress continues.

Mr Dapo Oyewole

Commission of Africa – mostly promises, not actual commitment from the governments. But the report highlighted couple of new perspectives:
Aid is not wealth creation
Development starts within Africa
The major questions are:
Why Africans are not talking?
Who is responsible of Africa, who talks on its behalf?
Did anybody ask Africans who they wanted to represent them on the global arena?
If change is going to take place on a sustainable way – who will lead it?

Professor Meghnad Desai

We shouldn’t put our hopes on reports, G8 or Live8. It seems that the report was more an education process for us (westerners) than to Africans – a kind of conscious building process/exercise.
In 1950s/60s Africa was ahead of Asia, not it has become a problem. Why?
Politics matter: leadership
Trade relations matter: West takes more from Africa than puts in.
To create development Africans need to invest in Africa – not in West. Business driven by profit creates development.

Mr Anver Versi

We have a very Eurocentric vision of Africa
We must remember that economics deal with human beings and their fears, hopes, dreams etc. Change is always seen dangerous/difficult and therefore our interest inherently is always to preserve and avoid change.
Africa is not a problem, it is a result of its history – we need to ask why is Africa in the situation it is?
Colonial chaos
Cultural death of Africa, destroyed the African identity, the way of live, its talent (= lost a system of life)
Chaos of independence
New Africa was created with artificial entities
Groups, tribes, classes: different struggles => revolutions
Chaos of Leadership
The only way to have effective leadership was through dictatorship to hold together the fragmented society

The major challenges we are facing in Africa are how we can move the rural population to urban areas?
There is no dream in Africa – without the dream there is no vision.

What is the purpose of the roads and infrastructures if the roads are not leading anywhere?

Commission of Africa put the car before the horse, using models which wont change anything in Africa. It concentrated on the economic point of view – that economic growth would change Africa. It won’t. Africa needs a dream and only through this dream/vision of the future, the leadership will change and the continent can change.

IS THE WTO DOHA ROUND GOOD FOR DEVELOPMENT? (March 8th)

For Claire Melamed, Trade Policy Adviser for Christian Aid, WTO rules to liberalise trade through fewer restrictions and less intervention should help development. Trade has been central to development for the last fifty years. It is not a question of whether trade is good for development, but what kind of trade helps poor people most.
Poor countries export too little and export the wrong things, such as primary commodities with little value added whose prices are in long-term decline. Successful countries are those that diversify from agriculture into electronics, clothing, and other consumer goods. Yet Africa is a good test for its significant liberalisation over the last twenty years, and it has failed. Lower tariffs and less intervention have resulted in imports growing much faster than exports and a decline in domestic production. Liberalisation is generally good for consumers, she argued, but producers are key to development and many African countries are poorer now than they were twenty years ago.
Yet whereas trade-led development failed to take off in Africa, the success stories like Taiwan, South Korea, China, India and Mauritius were not built on trade liberalisation. Taiwan had a protection rate of 55%; Mauritius has had twice the protection of the rest of Africa, and is the continent’s best example of development. The key, demonstrated by notable successes in Southeast Asia, is government policy, which has achieved a reduction in chronic hunger to 10% of the population. In Haiti, a population where 72% live below the poverty line, many have been made worse off through the liberalisation of rice, sugar and poultry. In Africa, much of the population is vulnerable, with a third suffering from chronic hunger, exacerbated in many cases by trade liberalisation.

For Alex Singleton, Director General of the Globalisation Institute, the simple truth is that, as fair as trade liberalisation is concerned, all the easy things have already been done. The Doha Round won’t be bad, but nor will it live up to expectations. The World Trade Organisation works on unanimity, and that makes meaningful agreements hard to reach, but what really makes it worthwhile is the disputes procedure. So when the EU raised tariffs on bananas from €75 a tonne to €230, the dispute could be resolved, with the WTO ruling rightly against the EU.
Without the WTO, nations would turn to bilateral deals, which are inevitably messy and discriminate against those not party to them. Smaller, poorer countries have much less bargaining power when it comes to bilateral negotiations. That said, countries are increasingly seeing the advantages of unilateral action. Some two-thirds of the liberalisation measures seen in developed countries since 1980 have been unilateral, and China and India too have taken to unilateral liberalisation. Yet Africa remains highly protectionist. In the twenty years to 2003, the global protection rate is down 84%, whilst in Africa it is down only 20%. Africa has huge potential gains from further liberalisation, with 54% of the gains expected from Doha due to intra-Africa trade.

Tariffs are highest in developing countries, with little justification. Protecting infant industries failed, even in Southeast Asia, let alone Latin America and Africa. The key is manufacturing exports financed by foreign direct investment. Countries like Hong Kong and Singapore amply demonstrate the benefits of liberalisation, and in general since the Second World War, open economies with liberal trade policies have been markedly more successful than closed economies. It is unrealistic to expect that state intervention will not be politicised, and in Africa this risk is all the greater. The best approach would be to lead by example, with unilateral liberalisation on the part of the EU and US, to the benefit of their own economies and of the entire world.

For Sheila Page of the Overseas Development Institute, the WTO is generally useful for development. The previous Uruguay Round had been trumpeted as a success, although the reform of agriculture proved to be much more limited than had been supposed. Against that backdrop, many developing countries felt cheated, and will not be satisfied with mere promises coming out of Doha. However the EU’s efforts to focus on the Least Developed Countries is unhelpful. Those countries generally have significant supply-side obstacles and what little export exposure there is enjoys preferential access, so LDCs have little to gain from the trade talks. At the Hong Kong Ministerial, supply side constraints among LDCs was finally recognised as a trade issue relevant to the WTO, rather then considered a matter for aid policy. Inevitably countries already enjoying preferential access will lose out if tariff faced by their competitors are reduced, but many more will gain from trade liberalisation than will lose.

The main achievement at December’s Hong Kong Ministerial was that the talks had not collapsed, as they had in Cancun and Seattle. Many difficult issues were addressed, with considerable ill feeling generated over bananas, with Latin America losing out from the preferential access that the EU gives to its former colonies. What is clear is that all sides wanted to avoid a crisis, which suggests considerable political will to succeed.

What the WTO offers above all is certainty and enforceability, which are particularly valuable to weaker countries. Developing countries have made considerable progress regarding bananas and cotton through the disputes procedure, and they have a much greater say in the WTO than they do in other global institutions. Developing countries have stopped being the client states of the EU or the US, and are co-operating successfully to make sure the trade rules work for them.

Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam, claimed that whereas the North benefits from trade liberalisation, the South still needs to protection, for example of infant industries. A one-size-fits-all trade policy can’t work: whilst the North wants clear rules, the South needs flexibility.
The WTO rules benefit weak countries in particular and no other institution has such an effective, accessible mechanism to resolve disputes. If the Doha Development Round fails, poor countries will be able to unpick US trade subsidies through the courts, so they have much less to lose from failure. In agriculture, whereas the North wants greater flexibility to subsidise, which they can afford, they also want less scope for protection, the avenue most open to poorer countries in the South. The fabled EU cow now earns subsidies worth $2.60, more than the income of half the people in the world. Denying poor countries protection effectively kicks away the ladder of economic development used by the successful economies of Southeast Asia.
The Doha Round began in the shadow of 9/11, and initial statements were rather New Testament, with expressions of good will and fair treatment for all. Over time, it turned Old Testament, an eye for an eye, with the senior US negotiator saying he needed blood on the floor if the US Congress is to believe that its competitors have given ground. However the deadline is dictated by US politics, with the presidential fast track for the negotiations, by which Congress simply accepts or rejects the deal, due to expire in June 2007 with no prospect of renewal. That effectively means that negotiations must be completed in the second half of 2006, or else Congress will go through it line by line and pull any agreement apart. The Uruguay Round took eight years, and was considerably simpler. The years needed for the Doha Round could easily end up in double figures. The key to a good deal will be, first, avoiding issues that are counterproductive, second, building in sufficient flexibility and third, the rich countries must recognise that they must give considerable ground.

Question one: Is the disputes mechanism really fairer to Less Developed Countries? What progress has there been to protect biodiversity and recognise indigenous knowledge, like the genetic straining in rice crops, now up for patent?
Question two: The World lacks the resources for everyone to experience development along Western lines, especially given the rising population and climate change. What kind of development should we be striving for?
Question three: How long would it take for free trade to achieve equal living conditions on earth?

For Alex Singleton, the success of Hong Kong, where incomes were a quarter of those in Britain after the war but which, on average, now surpass them, demonstrated the benefits of free trade. He forecast that in one hundred years time African poverty would be but a memory, following the path already trodden by countries like Ghana and Botswana. He was also optimistic about climate change, believing the solution lay within our grasp, be it solar energy or nuclear power, as the market operated to push up the price of natural resources such as oil, driving up efficiency and ensuring we do not run out.

Claire Melamed argued that the disputes mechanism was indeed bias, since it allowed countries to use sanctions to remedy unjust trade practices. Yet if a country like Zambia imposed sanctions on the US, they would have no effect, whereas if the US imposed them on Zambia they could be devastating. Aid should be used to kick-start renewable investment and encourage sustainable development in developing countries rather than have them follow the western model. She also pointed out that 300 square miles of solar panels in the Sahara could meet all the world’s energy needs, holding out the prospect of Africa being the OPEC of the late 21st century.

Sheila Page supported the disputes procedures, citing the Brazilian case on cotton, Peru on shrimp and Ecuador’s case about bananas. Although none among least developed countries had yet taken a lead in a case, they had been associate plaintiffs on occasion. However she insisted that trade could be only part of the answer. Although free trade is much more efficient than autarky, the key to successful development in countries like Hong Kong is good policy, and free trade alone would not suffice.

Duncan Green deemed the World Trade Organisation as the least worst of the global institutions. Whereas some had power but not democracy, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, others, like the General Assembly of the United Nations, had democracy but little power. The WTO at least has both. However in some aspects it is likely to exacerbate development challenges, for example by slowing down technology transfers.

Question four: Kenya is now a major exporters of flowers, which makes significant inroads into the countries water supplies. Although it provides jobs, does that offset the country’s reduced ability to feed its own population.

Question five: When considering trade disputes, for example between Brazil and the Windward Islands, the developmental benefits depend on a country’s policies. Brazil has one of the worst Gini coefficients of inequality in the world, and large landowners would amass the bulk of benefits derived from free trade. Such an undiscriminating attitude fails to maximise the developmental benefits of free trade, whilst the system has no way of effectively dealing with failed states.

Question six returned to the democratic deficit at the WTO, and what reforms would ensure that the voice of civil society is properly heard. A South Korean, the questioner insisted that that country’s progress was secured long before it adopted free trade practices, benefiting from US support and diversification from primary products. Those gains are now in jeopardy, with the middle class all but collapsing.

Question seven: The relative success of Kenya in exporting flowers has encouraged Ethiopia, and as competition increases, prices will inevitably fall while still pushing food production down. Such problems are exacerbated by the fragility of many states, the budgets of places like Malawi and Eritrea coming in lower than that for the London borough of Southwark. Moreover how can we guard against insecure land ownership? At present, when farming becomes profitable, the Kikuyu and the Masai see more of their land expropriated.
Question eight: There is considerable hype about buying goods locally. What impact does localism have on trade?
Question nine: How will a country like Mauritius cope with losing of preferential access to developed markets?

Duncan Green argued that, on balance, the cut flower trade in Kenya was beneficial. It provided jobs are there is also evidence that employees have a higher standard of living than others living off the land. But what matters is the domestic politics, the institutional framework, competent bureaucracies and technical assistance. As to WTO democracy, he likened it to the Ritz hotel: technically, everyone is free to have tea there. As regards South Korea, thirty years of successful development is now at risk from the World Bank and IMF. However whilst he acknowledged that Mauritius would face increased competition for its sugar and textiles, he was confident about the countries long-term future.

Sheila Page was wholly opposed to discriminating between ‘deserving countries’ where wealth is better distributed or they meet with other criteria, and the undeserving. Even if trade with Brazil benefited the rich landowners far more, that is not a reason to deny them the benefits of free trade. Whether the money gets to the Brazilian poor is a matter for the Brazilian state, and rich countries should not be the judge of right and wrong elsewhere. Some of the money will stick to the rich, as it always does, but some will be redistributed by the markets and some by the state. Trade is particularly important to smaller countries, she argued, and she could see little environmental or ethical case for localism. Disputes rarely go as far as the imposition of sanctions, there being a real commitment on behalf of most countries to respect the law. And one thing the WTO has going for it is that it is far more transparent than other institutions, recommending the website www.ictsd.org as a good source of comprehensive information.

Alex Singleton agreed that trade was particularly important for small countries where self-sufficiency is far harder to achieve. However he stressed that while trade was important for developing countries, good governance and effective measures to regulate property rights and avoid corruption were central to lasting development. In particular, people having title over their property gives them access to secured loans, allowing them to raise the capital required to start a small enterprise.

Claire Melamed acknowledged that cut flow exports could be good, but that not all exports were as good as each other. Some employ more people, or raise more taxes, extractive industries typically employing few and paying low taxes. Diversification is also important. Zambia was particularly vulnerable when British Airways considered cancelling its cargo flights from the country, jeopardising its ability to export its vegetables. And South Korea highlights the problems experienced from liberalisation even in a country that is relatively rich. Poor countries find it much harder.

This summary has been produced by Alastair Bowman".

CAN FOREIGN POLICY EVER BE ETHICAL?
(15th March 2006)

Martin Bell, chair-turned-speaker in the absence of Jonathan Aitken - indeed sole speaker for the first half, the Rt Hon Claire Short MP unavoidably detained voting against the Education Bill - offered a chilling of foreign policy as narrow self-interest.

As the Balkans descended into civil war in 1991, the common European position of not recognising any part of former Yugoslavia until a settlement could be achieved for all, was challenged at the EU’s Hague Conference. Germany wanted to recognise its old ally Croatia, and the Major government wanted an opt-out from the Maastricht Treaty. Lord Carrington, who chaired the Hague Conference, said it was like putting a match to the powder keg of the Balkans. Bosnia followed Croatia into civil war as each community recognised a land grab when they saw one. The UK’s expediency, selling out the Balkans in return for a Euro deal Prime Minister Major that could sell to his backbenchers, led to the most lethal war in Europe since 1945. Some forty thousand dead later, the Vance peace plan of 1992 needed UN Security Council approval to deploy troops to escort convoys, though to protect people. With a general election looming, the Major government refused any part of it, and the Norwegians had to step in.

And the politics of expediency over principal that led directly to Srebrenica. The UN had 34,000 peacekeepers in Bosnia, and 300 Dutch troops in the city itself, declared a ‘Safe Area’ by the UN Security Council. Yet in July 1995 they were withdrawn, leaving Serbs to massacre 7,000-8,000 men deemed of military age. In the politics of national interest, our prosperity and security were not directly affected by death in the Balkans. It was a cold calculation that UN troops were more important than the lives of the Muslims who had taken refuge in Srebrenica. It was in no one’s national interest to intervene aggressively and the war dragged on. All manner of horrors, even Buchenwald and Auschwitz, can go unchallenged if governments apply a narrow definition of national interest.

This does not mean we have to intervene everywhere. Clearly Blair thought the removal of Saddam Hussein was worth war in Iraq. It is hard to meet anyone in the country who agrees with him, and profound misgivings can also be found in the military. For a war to be just, it must be legal, have broad support in the country, and be proportionate, and Iraq failed on all three counts. In March 2003, British soldiers fired 22,500 rounds in and around Basra, 2,500 of them being cluster bombs, 20% of which do not explode on landing. They still kill and maim, mostly children and farmers.

The age of optional wars must now end. Veterans of the First World War, and increasingly of the Second, and fading away, and we are forgetting. The horrors of war recede, and a whole generation of politicians do not understand it. Denis Healey, who as Secretary of State for Defence kept Britain out of the Vietnam War for all Lyndon Johnson’s entreaties, attributed the War in Iraq on there being no minister or junior minister since 1998 who served with the military.

If there ever was a distinction between an ethical foreign policy and one predicated on national interest, there is no longer. They are the same. Too many African countries are blighted by AIDS, war, drought, poverty and misgovernment, and they produce millions of refugees and victims. 3,000,000 have died in the Congo. In Darfur, only UNICEF and NGOs are keeping the displaced alive. Tides of refugees wash up on Europe’s southern border, so it affects us directly. So now idealism and national interest concur. Good things happen because good people make them happen; bad things because good people let them happen. An ethical foreign policy is now a necessity.

Question one: Any foreign policy must be guided by self-interest, but one defined by reciprocity. Do as you would be done by, a longstanding Christian tenet as well as common sense. Why don’t politicians recognise the central role of mutuality?
Question two, from a former MI5 operative, asked whether Bell was aware of Operation Gladio, by which resistance armies would have remained in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe.
Question three: You supported military intervention in Bosnia, and appear to be calling for it in Congo and Darfur. How aren’t these ‘optional wars’?
Question four pressed the point. If there had been UN support, and there was a solid plan for the aftermath, could the Iraq War have been just and viable?

For Bell, it is a question of international law. The UN may not be perfect but it is all we have got. And as a permanent member, we should not adhere to it one day and disregard it the next. Regime change was never the reason for war, but WMD that weren’t even there. If the UN had supported regime change in Iraq, that would be one thing, but it didn’t. Bosnia was authorised; the UN has ‘seized itself’ of the situation in Darfur and Congo, and negotiations continue about replacing Africa Union forces with UN troops. But without international law, we enter the law of the jungle. When he became Foreign Secretary in 1995, Malcolm Rifkind quoted Prime Minister Palmerston with approval that the furtherance of British interests should be the sole object of British foreign policy. Yes, reciprocity is important, but we must now go further than that. The widening gap between have and have-nots generates a greater responsibility, and one borne of our common humanity.

Question five cited the Make Poverty History campaign as an example of the media covering an issue, and then forgetting it. Are the media the watchdogs of government policy that they should be, and do governments worry too much about short-term media reaction?

Bell recognised that the media covered international affairs less and less, likening them to a flock of starlings, alighting on a crisis, covering it frenetically, but flitting off again after a few weeks. The quality too is in decline, as Murdoch in particular plumbed new depths. And the world had become too dangerous, with less first-hand reporting from conflict zones and more from green zones and from roof tops, not down in the streets experiencing it with the people and the victims. There is now a lack of authenticity, Bell knowing first hand how embedded journalism creates an inevitable empathy for the soldiers. General Sir Rupert Smith offers a superb account of the changed theatre of war when he says in his seminal The Utility of Force that War no longer exists in the sense of the massed formation of men and machinery, brought together in decisive conflict. Now war is among the people, ‘shock and awe’ deployed against the very people we hope to win over.

Question six suggested little scope for an ethical foreign policy given the US and EU’s need for energy in coming decades, and asked about reports of a permanent US camp in Iraq which would not be evacuated even in the long term.

Bell agreed regarding our energy needs, and saw water too as a vital resource of future conflict. The world is more dangerous than at any time since 1945, the Golden Age looking increasingly like a Fool’s Paradise. The 1980s era of Reagan and Thatcher had been the high point, but the American Dream is fading rapidly now that, as the only superpower, it is brought face-to-face with its inability even to quell as single country like Iraq. It is ironic that we have returned to the soil of our two most historic defeats, in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan.

Question seven: Is the UN really accountable?
Question eight pointed out that powerful countries cajole, threaten and bride to get the mandate they want from the UN. How can that be ethical?
Question nine: Can an ethical foreign policy be reconciled with democracy, when electoral pressures can be far to short–term to support long-term strategic interests?

The UN isn’t perfect, Bell insisted, and only as strong or as weak as its constituent nations. In Britain, Labour gained a good majority with only 22% of the electorate, yet we purport to be a democracy and claim the right to impose democracy abroad. Democracy and accountability are in some ways even worse then when Bell was elected to parliament on an anti-corruption ticket in 1997. Yet that puts a greater onus on the electorate, and certainly does not justify any form of disengagement. Politics is too important to be left to politicians, and lobbying can be surprisingly effective. And when the US tried to bribe Turkey in the Spring of 2003 to allow them to invade Iraq from the North, even a promise of $19 billion was not enough.

Clare Short’s arrival at about 7.45pm brought news of a 52-strong Labour revolt over the Education Bill, pushed through on Tory votes. Short raised the hope of a larger rebellion unless Blair gives more ground, which was generally welcomed by the audience. She immediately agreed with the mood of the meeting, stating that it is no longer possible to differentiate between human rights and national interest. We live in turbulent times. The Middle East is in trouble. The Israeli-Palestine conflict remains extremely tense; Iraq is unstable with no end in sight. An attack on Iran looks very likely, if not by the US then with US support for an Israeli strike, which would be hugely destabilising, further radicalising Muslim opinion. Iran would be mad not to want nuclear weapons, though, as Israel did once, currently insists its programme is for civil purposes only. The Security Council will not resolve it: sanctions would push up the oil price to such a degree it could spark a global recession.

Meanwhile poverty, climate change, the precarious state of fish stocks, the receding forests and advancing desert, remain huge challenges. 90% of the extra three billion people expected by 2050 will be in poor countries. And even US experts now agree that global warming is speeding up in an enormously serious way. Without action within the next thirty years, human civilisation may not survive. Short said she had never expected to hold such an apocalyptic view of the future.

The only solution is to create a just world order in which environmental resources are used more equitably and efficiently. No agreement from the poor can be hoped for unless the world is just. Telling them to sacrifice their development to preserve the environment will not wash. At current growth rates, by 2031 China’s economy will equal that of the US today. If they all behave like the US, that would mean a further 1.2 billion cars, up from 800 million at present. The world cannot accommodate such growth. It simply isn’t possible for the populations of China and India to catch up.

We live in a world of fantastic resources, in terms of capital technology, skills and knowledge. We must create a new civilisation that is less greedy and consumerist. Our grandparents would be amazed by the lifestyles even of the poor in Britain today, and yet as a society we are dissatisfied, with social indicators like suicide and drug addiction all pointing in the wrong direction. We no longer have a sense of meaning, of generosity, working together, spirituality and respect for nature. We are at a turning point: a more moral global order is the only way to address our environmental challenges. People are yearning for change. Although history never repeats itself, we need a return to something of the 1960s, with the rejection of consumerism and greed. Yet things are likely to get worse before they get better, but we must recognise that and stand together.

The Middle East is breaking the moral authority of the United Nations. People in the Middle East have always had a lower opinion of the UN, since it has failed to bring peace and prosperity to the region, but respect for the UN has declined even further, just as it has throughout the world. It is suspected of doing the America’s bidding; it failed to protect Iraq from invasion; and following the election on 28 March, the next Israeli government is expected to implement the Sharon policy of unilateral enlargement, effectively reducing the Palestinians to three massive Bantustans. Yet the acquisition of land by force was what the UN was set up to prevent.

The US flouts the century-old Geneva Convention, governing the conduct of war, occupation and treatment of prisoners, further attacking international institutions just when we need them most. Kofi Anan was smeared in an outrageous way, when whatever corruption there was at the UN was dwarfed by the side-deals made with countries like Jordan which everyone knew about. Kyoto is stalled. All countries must be brought back to the table to broker a fair deal which incentivises the private sector to develop renewable technologies such as solar and wind power. Otherwise an inevitable rise in the oil price would result in further conflict, drawing in other oil-rich regions like West Africa.

Our own country has been dishonoured, Short said. Britain has been supine, adopting the role of deputy to the US sheriff. In reality, all prime ministers except for Heath have been in thrall to the ‘special relationship’, yet having an important European country like Britain effectively signed up to the US makes concerted EU action impossible. The US is in trouble in the Middle East. It will need to pull out of Iraq, and some neo-cons are already peeling off, recognising the invasion was a mistake. Any future president will need the UN for a successful withdrawal. The Labour Party has lost its way. Yet history tells us that progress can be made. As witnessed by the liberation struggle in India, or the fight for votes and trades union representation in the 19th century, people have an enormous capacity to endure and to fight for a fairer world. It can be done, although over the next decade it is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Question ten: Ten years may be too optimistic. When have we ever had ethical politicians, let alone an ethical foreign policy? The death of Robin Cook leaves the political world in an ethical and moral wasteland.
Question eleven asked whether Claire Short could have changed the Commons vote by resigning earlier.
Question twelve: What reforms to parliament could help?

Short argued that there have been successes in ethical foreign policy, pointing to decolonisation and the intervention in Kosovo, though admitting western powers should have acted sooner against Milosevic. When British troops went into Sierra Leone to evacuate Europeans, they stayed, helping to stabilise the situation. Intervention can stop wars, and now our overwhelming self-interest lies in having an ethical foreign policy. As regards parliament, we need electoral reform. Labour have a majority under one thousand in twenty seats, and need only lose twenty-six for a hung parliament. Electoral reform would transform British politics, make it more responsive to the causes of hopelessness and disempowerment. However no action on her part could have changed the vote to go to war, given the Tories voted for it and the majority of 263. She stayed in the cabinet until after the vote because Blair promised a return to the Roadmap for Middle East Peace, and even got Bush to endorse it, while also promising to internationalise the reconstruction effort after the war. Blair lied, but Short felt vindicated in her course of action. The motives for war, as well as the route to war, were seriously deceitful. For his part, Bell identified a crying need for more independent MPs who are responsive to the public. Cabinet should not be a rubber stamp, and the pernicious power of the whips should be curtailed.

Question thirteen: Had Blair refused US calls for war in Iraq, perhaps the whole process could have been derailed. What can parliament do to prevent war against Iran?
Question fourteen: There is a lack of political will to achieve an ethical foreign policy. What lessons can be drawn from the success in ethical consumerism and corporate social responsibility?
Question fifteen took Short to be referring to the ‘Contract and Converge’ strategy to address climate change. This sets a global level of greenhouse gas emissions consistent environmental sustainability, and places a greater burden on polluting countries to cut emissions first and by most, and also assist poor countries to develop clean technologies. How widely are such views held?
Question sixteen asserted that there is greater critical mass supporting ethical solutions among the general public, and consumption should remain a matter of choice, with people exercising restraint rather than being subjected to more laws. How should Iran be stopped, and how can nuclear proliferation be prevented?

Short does not expect a war in Iran, but a bombing campaign, and since its nuclear installations are in urban centres, the collateral damage would be high. Meanwhile there is considerable scope for Iran to destabilise Iraq, reversing the current support for democracy among the Shia majority. The only way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons in the next five to ten years is an overall settlement in the region, accepting the 1967 border as demanded by international law, and withdrawing all weapons of mass destruction from the region including those in Israel. The non-proliferation regime is breaking down, following India and Pakistan’s acquisition, whilst the fact that the US attacked Iraq but not North Korea is a clear enticement to other would-be nuclear powers. However she was not wholly pessimistic, believing that the general public was far ahead of the politicians in recognising the need for fairness to enhance our security and protect the environment. Ethical trading plus the damage done to brands by unethical corporate behaviour is fantastically powerful, and the ‘contract and converge’ idea of Aubrey Meyer provides the right basis to tackle climate change. And if we now recognise that we need the Amazonian rainforest, then it is up to us to provide with better options to people who would otherwise gain their living from cutting it down.

HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH IS A BIGGER THREAT THAN CLIMATE CHANGE (22nd March, 2006)

While the two issues are clearly connected, the crux of the matter is whether overpopulation causes a series of problems, of which climate change is but one, or whether climate change is the major issue, to which overpopulation is a contributory factor alongside lifestyles and energy-intensive technologies.

Prof. Chris Rapley, the Director of the British Antarctic Survey, acknowledged immediately that the two issues are intertwined but said that, whilst overpopulation may be a cause of climate change, it was nonetheless climate change that was the real problem. Remarkably, he still found it necessary to convince people, even those whose businesses will be adversely affected, that climate change is real, and its effects can already be measured. We know that the world is about 30ºC warmer than if there were no greenhouse gases, and historic emissions over the last 900,000 years are trapped as bubbles of gas in the polar icecaps. From that we know there has been a dramatic rise in CO2 emissions over the last 100 years and a doubling of methane levels. Whilst the extent of future temperature change is more controversial, he likened the polar icecaps to a miner’s canary. As more ice melts, the surface becomes dark and absorbs more of the heat than the ice once reflected, creating a positive feedback. The melting of the Greenland ice-sheet is accelerating, with the inevitable consequence of rising sea levels. Although Londoners are currently protected by the Thames barriers, saving an estimated £60 billion in damage from a major flood, it will prove inadequate in the future.

Whilst difficult to quantify, the effects of human consumption is key, so demography plays an important role. Yet people are generally bad at recognising long-term or geographically distant issues, and don’t like to be inconvenienced. And even if we stopped greenhouse gas emission completely now, it would be another 100-150 years before existing emissions are fully absorbed.

David Nicholson-Lord of the Optimum Population Trust had dropped into Waterstones on the way and found many books on climate change yet none on overpopulation. Population issues were not even on the radar, with a serious failure to recognise the effects of humans on all other life, from trees to badgers. Environmental groups are, he claimed, in denial, yet if Greens won’t say it, who will? From one billion people in 1800, two billion in 1930 and 2.5 billion in 1950, the human population exploded in the second half of the last century, to the current level of six billion. The UN’s median estimate for population in 2050 is 9.1 billion, or 76 million more people every year and 200,000 more every day. The expected 40% increase over the next 45 years is equal to 371 Londons. Even the UK’s population, once heading for stability, is now back on an upward trend, with the 1990s seeing the fastest population growth since the baby-boomer generation.

Yet those advocating an optimal level of human population were often branded as ‘anti-people’ and racist, treated like Malthusian serial killers out to cull the population. Yet overpopulation is far more ‘anti-people’. We live in a world near its limits. It is fished out, eaten out, dried out, over polluted and fast running out of fuel. Extinctions are running at one thousand times background levels. Hundreds of millions go hungry, and millions die of preventable diseases. Even in London, we are overcrowded, our transport congested, noise complaints rising, water being rationed, and people are voting with their feet, with a record level of emigration. Already humans exceed the earth’s biological capacity by 20%. If we all consumed like Europeans, we would need three earths to get by; like Americans we would need five. The UK needs 3.6 times its domestic bio-capacity, the remaining 2.6 coming from predominantly poor countries abroad. Yet whereas organisations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace campaigned on population in the 1970s, now they fight shy of it. The campaign group Population Concern has dropped the P-word, and even found the C-word too resonant of control, and now call themselves “Interact World-wide”. Campaign groups prefer not to mention it, partly because it was becoming repetitive, but also because they prefer to reduce the problem to lifestyle decisions. IPAT, the idea that environmental Impact is a function of Population, Affluence and Technology, offers the hope that cleaner greener lifestyles can be the solution. However, ‘dematerialising’ cannot work. So far, any gains from lifestyle changes have been wiped out by the rise in population. Human beings have an irreducible impact just by living, and the richer we become the more polluting we are. There are now 750,000 patio heaters in Britain; people want power showers and exotic holidays. Relying of lifestyle changes means an endless war of attrition, banning goods, rationing others, curbing certain activities, and turning the government into a nanny state that will undermine scope for collective action.

Instead we should recognise that the environment imposes limits. Climate change is a symptom, but there are many other problems besides. If the idea of carrying capacity is appropriate for other animals, we should apply the same rationale to the human population. Climate change is a symptom of population growth. Even Tony Blair recognised that in the forward to the Exeter Conference report, so why can’t environmentalists?

Dr Saleemul Huq (head of the Climate Change group at the IIED) turned that position on its head. Yes, climate change is anthroprogenic, with its causes clearly human, yet consumption rather than numbers is the central issue. The 140,000,000 Bangladeshis have a minimal impact on climate change because they enjoy few of the benefits from industrialisation. It is the rich, in developed countries and also in some developing countries, who are responsible. A US citizen is responsible for 30-40 times the emissions of a Bangladeshi. Those developing countries that are growing fast are an increasing problem, but that is not a question of population but of decoupling lifestyles from the high energy, high pollution example of developed economies. China has one of the most ambitious targets for renewable energy in the world; India is in the vanguard of wind power. Cleaner energy is key to a sustainable growth trajectory.

Clearly the rising population compounds climate change. Yet there is hope. China has contained its population, to the point that India will soon surpass it. Bangladesh cut its birth rate from over 3% to under 2% without coercion. Slower population growth would certainly help, but we need better technology if we are to prevent climate change becoming catastrophic. That climate change will hurt the poor most is a travesty. The rich countries must take their responsibilities seriously.

Question one: A large part of why greens and others have found it difficult to engage with the population problem is its association with racism and immigration. We need a more progressive language that doesn’t see migration and population issues as ‘congestion’, linking into the language of global social justice.

Question two agreed with the language point, identifying a taboo for groups like Friends of the Earth and Christian Aid, who don’t want to engage with the issue of reproductive rights, particular if coercion is seen as a possible solution. At the 1994 Cairo Conference, when population control focused on reproductive rights, it was taken up by feminist groups and sidelined by everyone else.
Question three asked whether Aubrey Meyer’s ‘Contraction and Convergence’ is the answer.

Nicholson-Lord agreed with the approach of having fair shares in the earth’s bio-capacity. Friends of the Earth advanced the idea of ‘environmental space’ in the 1990s, but the concept was abandoned. Contraction and Convergence provides a domestic quota for carbon use, helping to counterbalance the adverse effects of climate change which will be most harmful for countries like Bangladesh that have seen little benefit from industrialisation. And even though only 5% of the expected population growth will take place in the North, it is incumbent on rich countries to control our consumption habits. A Bangladeshi needs 0.6 global hectares, a ninth of that used per person in the UK. We need a Kyoto style approach for the population, although since we haven’t yet managed that in any serious degree for climate change, it seems a distant prospect. The population debate should be discussed in environmental and human terms, with no reference to race or ethnicity. There is a perception that climate change is more amenable to intervention than population, yet Iran shows how successful family planning can be, halving the fertility rate in only eight years without recourse to coercion.

Rapley believes that the population debate can be framed in neutral terms, based around the environmental limits of a finite planet. Yet the debate is tainted by the history of eugenics, and can infringe on religious freedoms and reproductive rights. Yet rights carry responsibilities, which include the adverse effects of fertility decisions on future generations. The optimum level of the population raises important questions regarding lifestyles and equity concerns. There are also harmless ways to manage the population, and absurd tax breaks like in France for having at least three children should be abandoned. People need to be more aware of the carbon consequences of their fertility and lifestyle decisions.

Huq agreed the Contraction and Convergence holds considerable appeal, as it incorporates a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a degree of equity and social justice. Kyoto fails in this regard, addressing the rights of rich nations to pollute, albeit within a framework of targets to reduce emission levels, and as such disempowers the poor who have no part in it. It will be very hard to reverse the current direction of policy, but also very worthwhile.

Question four claimed that the consumer dimension offered greater scope for action. Only a relatively small part of the population are making fertility decisions at any one time, but we can all take actions as consumers every day, making it a much more effective campaign strategy.

Question five argued that the Make Poverty History campaign, if successful, would have an adverse effect on climate change and asked how this can be addressed.

Question six identified the growth in resource use from economic development as the core problem and asked how the dangers of global conflict regarding scarce resources could be averted.

Question seven said that a population policy is no substitute for a fairer distribution of the world’s resources, but unless other solutions are accompanied by long-term optimal population targets, they will fail. There is no conflict between climate change and overpopulation.

Rapley agreed that both are important, and the key was to engage citizens regarding the consequences of their decisions. The latest evidence published in the last few months shows an even more alarming trend in average surface temperatures. The last report from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change was published five years ago, and the outlook has deteriorated markedly since then. Media interest is considerable, but scientists should not merely scare people but promote political action as the only way to make progress. Even the US government is beginning to recognise its responsibilities in light of concerted grassroots pressure.

Huq acknowledged the powerlessness people feel when what is needed is political change from governments. Yet we each have a carbon footprint. An intercontinental flight accounts for about two-thirds of a person’s annual allocation, but the carbon can be offset at a cost of only £15, and a European flight at £5, a price that many may choose voluntarily. As regards development, as people become richer and infant mortality declines, they tend to have fewer children. Education of girls, and of Imams who generally support birth control, is also key.

Nicholson-Lord said that no one doubts the important of family planning services, with half the women who die in childbirth carrying unwanted pregnancies that should have been prevented. He also argued that everyone will suffer from any future conflict for resources, with a real danger that the global economy will not deliver, even for rich people. Current estimates about ‘peak oil’ and the prospect of a long-term decline in production means that by the end of the century we may have to rely on between a quarter and a third of what we currently use.

A final contribution from the floor brought the debate to an end, warning of the risks of Dominion Theology, popular with American protestants because it supported their view of a God-given right to depose of the natural environment in any manner they wish.

Wilmot sought to redefine the question, focussing on how both Europe and the South have missed out on a productive relationship. The North has exercised an interest in Africa for 500 years. And African affairs remain closely intertwined with Europe, and in particular the City of London, which launders £250 billion of dirty money from the South every year. He cited the example of Haliburton, which distributed £146 million among officials in Nigeria to smooth the way for its liquefied natural gas interests in clear contravention of the law. Before Britain belatedly signed up to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, in December 2001, it was doling out tax relief on corporate corruption. But despite prosecutions in France and the US, the UK authorities can find little to trouble them. The OECD complains that Britain is among the worst offenders when it comes to bribes, and the government has been uncooperative about returning money to Africa.

Returning to Nigeria recently, having been thrown out by the military in 1988, Wilmot could see how all the government officials are living in the smartest parts of town. The same people who like having a house in London and who like educating the children in the UK’s private schools, and who come to the UK for medical treatment, bringing their wives to give birth and their girlfriends for hairdressing. The influence of Europe on Africa has been negative. If, over the last 500 years, we had had free trade, Africa and Europe would be equal. Nigeria has vast natural resources and well-skilled workforce, the only problem being most of them are driving taxis in London. A cab driver can earn £50,000 here; in Nigeria a full professor would earn the equivalent of £2,000. Why stay and teach, in a country where there are few books, no internet, poor water, sporadic electricity and poor health? The brain drain is the problem.

If Africa had industrialised during centuries of free trade, rather than being subjected to colonisation, Nigeria would now be a huge market for the EU, and a major competitor, just like the Chinese have become. They first had to overcome the opium addiction that Britain fed to them, just one example of the exploitative relationship that Europe has inflicted on the South. And today, criminal politicians from Nigeria and Congo own houses in Belgravia and Kensington. It is not a question of aid, but of relationships that are mutually beneficial. With free trade, Africa wouldn’t need aid, but instead there’s a free market in Africa’s doctors and nurses because it suits the North, but no fair access to European markets.

David Stephen, Director of the European Movement, framed the question in terms of whether EU expansion to the East, possibly to Turkey and beyond, would cause Europe to neglect its relationship with Africa. Yet it is clearly in Europe’s self interest as well as a moral duty to develop a new relationship with the South, not least because of security. Behind the Islamic rhetoric of the jihadis lies the obscene poverty and extreme inequality of today’s world. West Africa is becoming particularly important as countries like Equatorial Guinea join Nigeria and Angola as major oil exporters. In Nigeria, call them liberation movements or terrorists are attacking pipelines and taking hostages. Northern dependency on oil and the attractions of an assured supply requires a new dialogue. Sudan, Chad, the Middle East and China; we can’t turn a blind eye anymore. And even in Latin America, where Venezuela challenges US hegemony. We need a new political relationship that goes beyond aid, but aid is important to support democracy and development. Civil servants and politicians need to be well paid so that corruption is less attractive. Instead we have an international, largely Anglo-Saxon, mass media promoting a luxury lifestyle that creates temptation and leads to corruption.

Taking issue with Wilmot, Stephen said that free trade is not sufficient. It is no panacea, particularly for the least developed countries that will see little advantage. The CAP is not an immoral attack on poor countries. Though not perfect, the sugar regime was an example of how European policy helps countries like Fiji and Mauritius and Jamaica. Now it has been swept away, with all the benefits flowing to sugar barons in Brazil instead of poor farmers in the Caribbean. And the US is notorious for subsidising it cotton, forcing the industry to near collapse in Sub-Saharan Africa. Europe takes 70% of exports from the Least Developed Countries, compared with only 17% for the US. And half of all international development aid comes from Europe. The EU’s relationship with the South is important, and it must not turn its back.

Tony Colman endorsed what Wilmot had said about corruption. His private members bill criminalising Britons who committed corruption abroad was enacted in February 2002, and still there have been no prosecutions. Forty years ago when he was working in Nigeria, Colman helped set up a consumer goods industry to supply the supermarket chain he worked for, and it is depressing to note that no similar venture has been attempted since. The old EU of fifteen countries had clear interests in the South as the former colonial powers, brutalising their colonies in various degrees. And still the effects can be felt today. You need a Portuguese lawyer to transact business in Angola; Italy blocks the recognition of Somaliland. Whilst the ten new EU members do not have a colonial past, they have nonetheless signed up for the 0.7% UN aid commitment, although currently have to meet the rather less stringent target of 0.17%. And being former communist countries, they have strong connections with countries like Vietnam.

The ‘Everything But Arms’ (EBA) initiative grants duty free access to all Least Developed Countries so sell as much as they want into Europe, except for arms and munitions. Africa has found large markets for its trade in fresh flowers and vegetables where it can profit from its expertise in agriculture. The Commission for Africa identified the need for an investment climate facility to attract capital to Africa, and Mode 4 regulations now require doctors to return to their homelands, having benefited from training and experience in a developed healthcare system. There is also much that could be done to promote a cleaner development path, taking a clean technology, low emission strategy rather than following the example set by developed countries.

Still only 43% of EU aid goes to the poorest countries, although that is up from 15 years ago. The bulk of EU aid goes to its ‘ring of friends’ around Europe, to Russia and the old Soviet bloc, the Middle East and North Africa. Does this suggest the EU does not take the South seriously? There is great poverty in medium developed countries, and it operates like an insurance policy for Europe, for prosperity and against migration. The Baltic states offer an example of how former Soviet republics can be turned around. The EU is good at development. The essentials are the rule of law, property ownership and an effective tax regime. And although the ‘good neighbour’ policy makes sense, half of the $50bn of new money committed to aid will go to the Least Developed Countries.

Question one said that corruption was as endemic in the former Soviet Union as it is in Africa, and civil society groups were working to get the issue discussed at June’s G8 meeting in St.Petersburg. How can we establish enlightened democracy in these nations?
Question two asked whether the lack of prosecutions in the UK reflected a lack of political will, insufficient resources, a lack of evidence or some other reason.
Question three said that Africa needs to sell processed goods, not just raw materials, and highlighted the problem of dumping subsidised process like tinned tomatoes on African markets. What should be done about tariff escalation on processed goods? And is the EU’s desire to sell services to Africa in Africa’s interests?

Wilmot argued that corruption undermines all hope of democracy. In Nigeria, the president has bribed people to change the constitution to allow him a third term. The last elections in 2002 were only conducted fairly in two of the thirty-six states, and were effectively a civilian coup, seizing power through money. And once in office, they are free to bribe even more, creating a vicious circle. Everyone knows who the money launderers are, both in the City of London and in Africa itself, and prosecutions are the best way to stop it. Nigeria managed to find billions for weapons in its civil war of 1966-1970, merely from its agricultural exports like groundnuts and cocoa, and didn’t even get into debt. Now it has oil revenues, it is heavily in debt and its agricultural exports have all but dried up. The government is concerned solely with oil revenues. Yet we allowed Abacha to send his children over with suitcases of money in diplomatic bags. Not a single bank has been prosecuted and Blair even refuses to name the perpetrators. Yet we call one a dictator and the other a statesman.

For Stephen, democracy requires a degree of loyalty to the state if it is to be durable and effective. Yet so many countries in the South are artificial, the creation of colonial powers. The borders between Senegal, Gambia and Guinea Bissau, for example, were determined at the Berlin Conference in 1885 and cut right through settlement patterns, undermining legitimacy and weakening the mobilisation power of the state. And corruption should not be seen as unique to places like Russia and Africa, with the lobbyist scandal engulfing Washington as bad as any.

Colman said that enlightened democracies need three things. A proper statistical basis for the state, to draw up an electoral role; a broad tax base; and land ownership rights, particularly for women. Currently only 5-10% of Africans pay tax, yet experience shows that even if people are charged only a fraction of the cost for teaching and medical services, they feel more engaged and demand accountability from their politicians. At least the Export Credit Guarantee Department no longer offers cover for bribes, although our practice of common law, rather than Roman law, makes it harder to return money to Africa. As regards processed foods, Coeman had seen the canning factory that EU Trade Minister Mandelson denied existed. Dumping must be reduced, but weak capacity to build up local manufacturing is also part of the problem. Trade in services can be beneficial, but the South needs to have transparent procurement processes, with sealed bids opened in public on television.

Question four said that water, not Aids, is the major problem facing Africa, and also highlighted the continents many conflicts, asking whether former colonial powers were behind the wars.
Question five acknowledged the EU as the major aid donor, but asked whether it was effectively spent. When Secretary of State, Clare Short criticised how little EU money goes to the poorest countries. Has it got any better?
Question six said that in recent years Chinese investment in Africa has risen at an annual rate of 50%, with particular interest in oil in places like Sudan. When the Angolans were turned down by the IMF for a $2 billion loan due to lack of transparency in its oil revenues, China came up with the money. Is Chinese investment benign or a threat?

Wilmot blamed people like Charles Taylor for conflicts, but insisted that the EU and the diamond industry were also responsible. While warlords are the most visible, they do not act alone. He agreed regarding the lack of water and sanitation, which, along with malnutrition, weakened people immunity and made them more vulnerable to diseases like malaria. When Nixon was asked about aid to distant places, he insisted the US was not helping foreigners but helping itself through tied aid. Although the position has improved, the majority of UK aid money still goes on British consultants and British products. For 2500 years, China has wanted its trading partners to benefit, identifying this as an important means to influence its neighbours in its own long-term interest. Chinese foreign policy may be immoral, but Africans are benefiting from its investment and also its cheap goods, with motorbikes selling for as little as £240.

Stephen identified economic decline as the common cause of conflict, brought about by long-term weakness in primary commodity prices, from which the state could not protect its citizens. Since Short criticised the EU aid budget, administration has been improved, with more rigorous country assessment. The proportion of UK aid going through the EU has fallen from 22% to 19%, but the value of multilateral aid that obviates national interest of individual EU states has important advantages.

Colman argued that the number of conflicts in Africa has fallen dramatically over the last twenty years. Colonial interference, such as when France bombed the airforce of the Cote d’Ivoire, should be stopped, while the need to replace the Africa Union with the UN in Darfur was a sign of failure. However most small arms are now manufactured in the continent itself, rather than coming from Eastern Europe. The Kimberley process should help to prevent illicit diamond sales from war zones, although greater use of synthetic diamonds will deny Africa an important source of revenue. British aid was now been fully untied since 1998, and EU aid had also improved. As regards China, he hailed the benefits of cheap goods for Africans, and insisted that it is for African countries alone to decide what investment they accepted and on what terms.