A pledge by world leaders to double the amount of aid for Africa to $50 billion a year was "very good news", a delighted UN secretary general Kofi Annan said last night, adding that he hoped the G8 summit would be "the beginning of the end of mass poverty".
"The leaders of people around the world wanted progress towards reducing poverty in Africa, and today they got it," he said in a statement.
The G8 promise was also welcomed by Irish rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof, but other anti-poverty campaigners were critical of the five-year delay in reaching the new aid level. Even Mr Annan admitted being disappointed that no date was set for an end to farm export subsidies, some of which are provided for under the EU's Common Agriculture Policy.
The three-day summit, held under heavy security at a Scottish golf resort, came to a close yesterday afternoon under the shadow of the bomb attacks in London. British prime minister Tony Blair thanked his G8 colleagues for "their expressions of solidarity to the British people" over the attacks.
Claiming that "very substantial progress" had been achieved on aid, Mr Blair highlighted the promised $25 billion increase for Africa as well as a $50 billion increase in funding worldwide. There would be a push for near-universal access to treatment for HIV/Aids, international dialogue on climate change, and a project to raise up to $3 billion to finance a new Palestinian state. However, the prime minister took the precaution of getting the G8 leaders to sign the communiqué, which was "not normally done".
Echoing Mr Annan's sentiments, U2 singer Bono told a news conference: "If an Irish rock star can quote Winston Churchill, this is not the end of extreme poverty, but it is the beginning of the end." Sitting beside him, Bob Geldof said: "This is the most important summit there ever has been for Africa."
The lives of 10 million people would be saved and to belittle this achievement was "a disgrace".
But Irish aid agencies were divided in their response. Trócaire said only $10-$20 billion of the extra $50 billion was new money. "The remainder is merely a restatement of old promises," said Trócaire policy co-ordinator Caoimhe de Barra.
Goal chief executive John O'Shea said cancelling debt and donating further aid was pointless unless the problem of Third World corruption was tackled. It was "likely to benefit Swiss bankers only".
However, another leading Irish agency, Concern, gave "a broad welcome" to the outcome of the summit but stressed that the decisions "must be translated into urgent action".
The Irish branch of the Make Poverty History campaign said the decisions of the G8 leaders had "fallen short of the hopes of millions of campaigners and poor people around the world". Campaign spokeswoman Nessa Ní Chasaide said: "We still have a very long way to go to make poverty history."
Environmental activist Pat Finnegan of the Greenhouse Ireland Action Network (Grian) said Bono and Bob Geldof were "desperately out of touch, totally under-briefed, and seriously off-message" on the summit's implications for Africa and climate change.