July 26, 2005
The G-8 Summit, By Jonathan William Barr
The leaders of the G-8, which includes the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia, were gathered at Gleneagles golf resort in Scotland. The largest industrialized nations of the world met to discuss various issues including the Middle East, Climate Change, Terrorism, Trade, and Development Aid. This conference came just a week after the heavily promoted Live 8 concerts, where many well-known musicians played in each G-8 country to raise awareness towards African poverty. The goal of these concerts was to pressure governments to pledge 0.7 per cent of GDP to foreign aid. Interestingly, this 0.7 per cent goal was first proposed by former Canadian Prime Minister, most known for his innovations in field of peacekeeping, Lester B. Pearson.
Indeed, the Live 8 concert brought awareness to the issue of African poverty. The media attention that this event received was truly global; however, as the leaders arrived at the summit, they were greeted by angry protestors who were clashing with police. Similar to Scotland, violent protests were also seen at the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) conference in Seattle and the 2001 Summit of the Americas (SOA) in Quebec City. The protestors were seen throwing rocks at police and vandalizing public property.
There is no doubt that protestors deserve credit for showing support for a cause that they believe in, and exercising their democratic right to speak out. The problem is that when violence is used, it tends to distort and hide the real issues. The media will always sensationalize images, which means violence will become the main focal point of protests, when violent situations occur. That exact situation occurred in the days following the Gleneagles summit, where the violence of the protests became the main story for the nightly television newscasts. The means used by the protestors in Scotland were counter-productive to the ends that they were seeking. An effective and more positive protest would have been one without violence.
To comment briefly on development aid, real solutions to combat African poverty will be hard since the government's in these countries are ruled by corruption and crony capitalism. Throwing millions of dollars at poor countries is all well and good, however, it becomes completely ineffective when the leaders of these countries take this aid money and throw it into their Swiss bank accounts. Thus, an important step towards combating poverty in these countries would be to build national legal infrastructures that are transparent to the people that they are supposed to serve. An effective policy to combat poverty would see the rule of law and an impartial judicial system as the cornerstones of society. Moreover, African countries need to encourage democractic process, where the government is held accountable to the people. In Understanding Globalization, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman makes an important argument when he says, "creating a stable political, legal, and economic environment friendly to entrepreneurship, in which people can start businesses and raise their productivity, is the precursor to effectively fighting poverty anywhere." Therefore, when thinking about making poverty history, we must think about development as more than simply giving money to these countries. Making poverty history will have to entail helping these poor countries develop good government.
For a rather interesting read, see: Thomas Friedman, Understanding Globalization: The Lexus and the Olive Tree.
Author: Jonathan William Barr
Posted on July 26, 2005 06:22 AM