OTTAWA -- Africa should not expect buckets of aid money to land in its lap as a result of the Group of Eight summit next month in Alberta, one of Canada's top diplomats in Africa is warning.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien wants the summit in Kananaskis to focus on a new development partnership between rich countries and Africa, which has raised widespread hope among development organizations and African countries that higher levels of financial aid would be forthcoming.
But Lucie Edwards, Canada's high commissioner to South Africa, is telling regional audiences that the G8 will concentrate on opening up the world's richest markets to African exports, and on increasing private-sector investment in the continent.
Some new money will be given, although much of it has already been announced, Ms. Edwards said yesterday in a telephone interview.
"This is a long-term initiative," she said from Pretoria. "What we're saying is, aid isn't the solution. There are a whole series of things that need to be done, including mobilizing resources that exist within Africa, using our aid more efficiently, looking at foreign direct investment, and the associated environment that you need to make that work."
Ottawa has already earmarked $500-million of new aid money for Africa, and promised to increase Canada's aid budget by 8 per cent a year.
The United States and the European Union have also promised to increase their aid budgets by billions of dollars over the next few years, although it is unclear how much of that will go to Africa, or when.
Initially, the Canadian government had hoped the summit at Kananaskis, southwest of Calgary, would produce a multibillion-dollar aid package for Africa, based on a new pact from African countries to open their economies, protect foreign investment and improve democracy. But that hope vanished months ago, and now diplomats are dampening expectations.
Efforts in Canada are now focused on a market-access package that would eliminate trade barriers faced by African countries exporting goods to Canada.
The federal cabinet is set to decide by next week whether the new initiative should remove trade barriers for all poor countries, or just African countries. The cabinet is under pressure from the domestic textile and apparel industry to limit any concessions given to overseas competitors.
The Canadian apparel industry says the proposed initiative will do very little to help the world's poorest countries, while threatening jobs in Canada. The industry wants Ottawa to limit its initiative to Africa only, and at the same time eliminate tariffs on imported fabrics so that Canadian apparel manufacturers have access to the same cheap cloth as other countries.
A research paper to be released today by the C. D. Howe Institute, however, contends that the market-access initiative will help poorer countries.
Meanwhile, a growing network of activists wants the Canadian government to concentrate more on pressing African leaders to take action in Zimbabwe, where the questionable re-election of President Robert Mugabe has led to continued unrest and reports of widespread human-rights abuses.
Ms. Edwards has been at the centre of a controversy in South Africa over remarks she made at a conference this month. She was quoted in a South African newspaper as saying that the situation in Zimbabwe had been sufficiently dealt with when African leaders decided to suspend the country's membership in the Commonwealth for a year.
Ms. Edwards said yesterday that she had been misquoted, and in fact Canada was very concerned about human-rights violations in Zimbabwe.
She said African leaders had shown that they were willing to move in the right direction by suspending Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth.
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