With the terrible tsunami disaster giving added urgency to efforts to end poverty and reduce / cancel the debt, Blair and Brown yesterday announced their G8 presidency plans for reducing poverty.
While this is all good it's clear that along with debt reduction / cancellation and more aid, the priority is also expanding free trade, but trying to make some of it fairer.
Below are some of the key points as excerpts from the media coverage:
While this is all good it's clear that along with debt reduction / cancellation and more aid, the priority is also expanding free trade, but trying to make some of it fairer.
Below are some of the key points as excerpts from the media coverage:
Brown proposes tsunami debt moratorium
Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c01932dc-5fdc-11d9-bd2f-00000e2511c8.html January 6 2005
Gordon Brown on Thursday reiterated his call for a new form of Marshall plan to deliver “a once in a generation opportunity” to eliminate global poverty.
The chancellor, determined to keep development high on the G8 agenda, sought to use the example of tsunami relief as an example of how “closely and irrevocably” the nations of the world were bound together, tying “the fortunes of the richest persons in the richest country to the fate of the poorest persons in the poorest country of the world even when they are strangers and have never met.”
A new Marshall plan
Mr Brown outlined three key elements of his proposed new Marshall plan, the US programme of economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War:
•A “final historic step” in delivering full debt relief for debt burdened countries
•Implementation of “the first world trade round in history that benefits the poorest countries and ensures they have the capacity to benefit from new trade”
•Organising a new international finance facility to offer immediate, long term aid for investment and development. “This would raise an additional $50bn a year each year for the next ten years, effectively doubling aid to halve poverty, ” Mr Brown said.
Justice for Africa
Mr Brown reiterated his determination to make Africa a priority. “To those who say Africa should remain patient, the reply now comes from Africa: 150 years is too long to be patient. 150 years is too long to wait for justice,” he said.
Key points:
• This year the richest countries “should match bilateral debt relief of 100 per cent with the bold act of offering 100 per cent multilateral debt relief - relief from the $80bn of debt owed to the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank.”
• The cancellation of debts owed to the IMF “should be financed by a detailed plan and timetable we now agree to use IMF gold.”
•Countries “should make a unique declaration that they will repatriate their share of the World Bank and the African Development Bank’s debts to their own country. “
Reforming world trade
Mr Brown also called for a liberalisation of world trade to help poorer countries. He said the richest countries should agree “to end the hypocrisy of developed country protectionism by opening our markets, removing trade-distorting subsidies and in particular, doing more to urgently tackle the scandal and waste of the Common Agricultural Policy – showing we believe in free and fair trade.”
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G7 agree to tsunami debt relief
UK's Gordon Brown gets industrialised countries to agree to freeze repayments
Business Report
By Ross Finley
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=2365381 January 7, 2005
London - UK finance minister Gordon Brown had full support from other major industrialised nations to freeze debt repayments immediately from countries affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami, he said yesterday.
The deal between members of the Group of Seven (G7) will be announced at a creditors' meeting next week as Brown sets off on a week-long trip to Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa.
Asian countries affected have roughly $272 billion (R1.55 trillion) in external debt, with Indonesia owing $48 billion to the Paris Club group of creditors, which could generate more than $3 billion in repayments this year.
Britain has said it is eager to tackle Africa's economic woes and wants its allies in the G8 to agree to multilateral debt relief, set a timetable for raising development aid to 0.7 percent of national income and sign up to a scheme to double aid to poor countries.
Brown also renewed a broad call to liberalise trade for the benefit of poor nations as well as making a renewed bid for a so-called international finance facility, which would leverage existing aid budgets in the capital markets to raise more funds.
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Brown's Marshall plan for world poor
Tsunami response gives hope, says chancellor
Larry Elliott and Michael White
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1385130,00.html Friday January 7, 2005
Gordon Brown launched Britain's campaign for a Marshall plan for Africa yesterday when he called on the international community to harness the "passion of compassion" generated by the Asian tsunami disaster to make 2005 a breakthrough year for the world's poorest continent.
At his monthly Downing Street press conference, the prime minister warned that Africa suffers "the equivalent of a man-made, preventable tsunami every week".
The parallel appeals for radical action to end world poverty, which will face serious resistance and counter-plans among Britain's main allies, mark the start of the UK's year-long presidency of the G8 group of industrial states and, from July, of the EU.
The parallel appeals for radical action to end world poverty, which will face serious resistance and counter-plans among Britain's main allies, mark the start of the UK's year-long presidency of the G8 group of industrial states and, from July, of the EU.
Britain is proposing:
· Debts owed by the world's poorest countries, including Sri Lanka, to institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should be written off
· A doubling of aid to $100bn (£55bn) a year
· Better trade terms to help poor countries to build up their export capacity while rich countries dismantle their protectionist barriers.
Without immediate action, Mr Brown said, the world would renege on the pledges made at the UN to halve poverty, provide universal primary education and cut infant mortality by two-thirds, all by 2015. Almost every world leader, state and international body had signed up to the millennium development goals.
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Brown demands new deal for poorest countries
By Alan Jones, PA
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=598261 06 January 2005
Gordon Brown called today for a new deal between the richest and poorest countries and a "shared resolve" to do everything possible to help victims of the Asian tsunami.
"And just as we are proposing more generally that we widen and deepen multilateral debt relief, we are also proposing 100% multilateral debt write-off for Sri Lanka - and unilaterally we, Britain, will pay ourselves 10% of that debt write-off."
The Chancellor said leading countries should consider "all options" for further help, pledging to raise the issue at the G7 finance ministers' meeting next month.
"With the public reaction to the tsunami showing the mood of the British people, I believe this support is growing wider and deeper with, already, in Making Poverty History more than 100 aid, development, and trade organisations and anti-poverty organisations coming together in demonstrations, campaigns, petitions, in challenging Government to make poverty the issue of the year."
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Marshalling hopes
Can aid change the world?
The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1428777,00.html January 07, 2005
Mr Brown’s plan does not lack chutzpah. It puts three ambitious demands on the agenda for the G8 in the coming year: first, that rich countries make trade fairer by reducing trade-distorting subsidies and tariffs; secondly, that they write off the debts of very poor countries; and thirdly, that they further increase their own aid budgets.
The first of these will be the most risky politically for world leaders to sign up to, but would have the greatest impact on poverty.
The second demand, dropping debt, is much in vogue. And there is something very wrong when African countries owe more than $10 billion in debt repayments each year, and Indonesia’s debt amounts to 80 per cent of its national income.
...it would be wrong for the West to relieve debts only then to advance new loans, triggering a new lend-and-forgive cycle.
The last demand, for more cash, is less convincing.
...the big question is whether more money will really bring about the kind of fall in poverty seen recently in China and India, which stemmed from better governance more than aid. The G8 needs to highlight this example for other countries to follow.
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Labour's 'Marshall Plan' for Africa won't work
The Telegraph
http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/07/dl0701.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/01/07/ixopinion.html Friday 7 January 2005
Comparing the speech of George Marshall, promising emergency financial assistance from America to Europe after the Second World War, and that of Gordon Brown yesterday calling for more aid to Africa, is very instructive. It tells you a great deal about why Gen Marshall's plan was such a success, and why that advocated by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister is flawed. Marshall said America's objective "should be the revival of a working economy so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist", whereas Mr Brown's most revealing quote is "double the aid, halve the poverty".
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UK: G7 to back nation debt freeze
CNN / Reuters
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/01/06/uk.debt.freeze.reut/ Thursday, January 6, 2005
British finance minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday he has full support from other major industrialized nations to immediately freeze debt repayments from countries afflicted by the Asian tsunami disaster.
"We and other governments are proposing an immediate moratorium on debt repayments," Brown said in a speech in Edinburgh. "The G7 and Paris Club must also stand ready to consider all options for further assistance," he said.
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Papers focus on Blair, Brown spat
BBC Online
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4153657.stm Friday, 7 January, 2005
Just as they did on Thursday, many of Friday's papers chart the latest twists of the relationship between the prime minister and the chancellor.
While both scheduled appearances for the same time on Thursday, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were really "miles apart", the Daily Star noted.
The Times shows the prime minister's grin - and only his grin - under the headline: Blair bares his teeth.
Its cartoon depicts the pair as akin to Punch and Judy, "but they argue more".
The papers also analyse the chancellor's proposal of a modern Marshall Plan for Africa, with a doubling of UK aid.
The Telegraph dismisses the plan, saying "the last thing Africa needs is more aid".
But the Guardian sees merit in the proposal, saying it offers a chance for action to help the continent.
The Mirror sees Mr Brown as "lighting a beacon" for a future free from "self-interest and greed".
Some papers take the time to celebrate the success of their disaster appeals for the victims of the tsunami.
The Daily Express talks of money "pouring in" to its appeal from tens of thousands of its readers.
The Daily Mail praises the kindness and generosity of its readers as its aid drive passes the £6.6m mark.
The Mirror sees the "first signs" that "aid is finally healing Asia's tsunami victims", showing a photo of a woman in Aceh bathing her child in clean water.
The start of a new series of Celebrity Big Brother fills many a page, even if some papers are not convinced of the calibre of star power on offer.
The Express admits it has not actually heard of some of the contestants in the Channel Four reality game show.
The Mirror shows a group photo on its front page, promising to explain on its inside pages who the "celebs" are.
The Mail puts it even more strongly, saying "just look who Channel Four has found at the bottom of the barrel".
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Tory plan to end global poverty
BBC Online
Thursday, 6 January, 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4152547.stm The Tories would match Labour spending plans on international development arguing the move underlines their commitment to ending global poverty.
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