[kictanet] G20 Happenings relevant to Africa to observe

[Paul Kukubo]

 Listers
Leaders are expected to agree on a "nine-pillar" plan tomorrow that is
intended to become a guide to strengthening cooperation between developed
and emerging economies.
The nine pillars are infrastructure building, trade promotion, human
resources development, private investment, job creation, domestic resources
mobilisation, growth with resilience efforts, financial inclusion and
knowledge sharing.G20: free-trade area for Africa proposed by UK and South
Africa.

Anti-poverty strategy co-sponsored by Jacob Zuma and former Labour minister
Baroness Vadera aims to bring 26 African countries together in a trading
bloc

Patrick Wintour <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/patrickwintour> and Phillip
Inman <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/phillipinman> in Seoul,
guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Thursday 11 November 2010 15.23
GMT

   -
   [image: Baroness (Shriti) Vadera] Baroness Vadera, the former Labour
   minister, now a G20 adviser and the co-sponsor of the Africa free trade area
   initiative. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

   A free trade area for Africa, to help the impoverished continent match
   the spectacular growth of Far East economies, emerged as a distinctive
   British initiative at the G20
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/g20>summit today.

   The anti-poverty strategy, which is partly the brainchild of former
   Labour minister turned G20 adviser Baroness Vadera, has been developed with
   Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa.

   David Cameron, speaking at a business summit in Seoul today, said: "We
   should explain that free trade is good for the poorest parts of our world as
   well, and one thing the British have been very active in trying to insert
   into this G20 is a free-trade area for Africa.

   "Africa should be a growing part of the world economy: we should be
   lifting more people out of poverty in Africa. But we will not do it with all
   the trade barriers that exist between African countries."

   There are currently three distinct free trade areas within Africa, but a
   meeting in January of the continent's major powers is designed to create a
   single free trade entity spanning 26 countries.

   However, anti-poverty campaigners warned that a new approach focused on
   growth must not be used as an excuse to wriggle out of aid promises. "That's
   got to be the worry – that there's the appeal of the new, and that promises
   that are quite painful to deliver in the current climate are gone," said
   Adrian Lovett, global campaign director for Save the Children.

   Save the Children said that of $25bn in aid promised by the G8 countries
   in 2005, only $12bn has been delivered, and warned that
development<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/development>progress
could be derailed by the economic crisis.

   Zuma, who is attending the G20 meeting, said the summit is also expected
   to launch major investments in infrastructure and skills development in
   developing countries, to help rebalance the world economy by creating new
   centres of demand outside the flagging economies of North America and
   Europe.

   A battle earlier in the year – in part waged by Vadera, who was helped
   into her current role by her former boss, Gordon Brown – has ensured that
   the issue of international development is now appearing on the G20's agenda,
   having previously been seen exclusively as the preserve of the G8.

   Leaders are expected to agree on a "nine-pillar" plan tomorrow that is
   intended to become a guide to strengthening cooperation between developed
   and emerging economies. The nine pillars are infrastructure building, trade
   promotion, human resources development, private investment, job creation,
   domestic resources mobilisation, growth with resilience efforts, financial
   inclusion and knowledge sharing.

   Vadera, a former investment banker who was ennobled by Brown, points out
   that South Korea is one of only two countries that has transformed itself
   from a low income country to a high-income country in just one generation.
   She argues that it achieved this not by following the traditional
   prescriptions of the World Bank or the IMF, but by using international
   trade <http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/internationaltrade> as an
   essential component of its development policy.

   She argues that it is not enough to rely on aid over the long term;
   instead, greater reliance on domestic resources is critical to build a more
   resilient economy and implement a home-grown development agenda.


G20: free-trade area for Africa proposed by UK and South Africa This article
was published on guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/> at 15.23 GMT on
Thursday 11 November 2010. A version appeared in the
Guardian<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>on Friday
12 November 2010 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/nov/12>.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20101111/390875af/attachment.htm>