Blair hails 'immense progress' on Africa

Tony Blair has told MPs that "immense progress" was made at last week's G8 summit.

The prime minister used a Commons statement on Monday to say the Gleneagles gathering had delivered solid achievements on both Africa and climate change.

He said the doubling of aid to Africa, providing an extra bn per year by 2010, was "a mighty achievement" for both the summit and anti-poverty campaigners.

"I pay tribute to the organisations around the world who care deeply about Africa," Blair told the Commons.

He praised Make Poverty History and the organisers of Live 8. There was also strong praise for chancellor Gordon Brown and international development secretary Hilary Benn who worked on the government's Africa agenda.

"Africa is the only continent in the world which without change will not meet any of the [UN's] millennium development goals," he said.

"The G8 put particular attention on health and education for Africa," he added, reporting progress on providing disease vaccinations and the near universal supply of treatments for malaria, Aids and polio.

The prime minister also said trade talks had agreed the need for a "credible end-date" for western export subsidies, with Britain pushing for this to be 2010.

The G8 also "recognised poor countries' need" to establish their own trade policies.

But Blair warned that movement from the world's richest economies needed to be accompanied by improvements in African governance.

"Every country in Africa that betrays the principle of good governance betrays Africa," he said.

Climate change

On climate change, Blair acknowledged that progress had been slower, but still significant.

He welcomed a "new dialogue involving the G8, the emerging economies and international institutions" which will provide a "pathway to a post-Kyoto agreement".

"On the two hardest issues on the international agenda there was progress and in the case of Africa immense progress," he concluded.

"If we can achieve what was agreed, today's largest economies can live in harmony with tomorrow's largest economies."

Conservative leader Michael Howard paid tribute to Blair's personal role in the negotiations.

"Though it was overshadowed by the atrocity in London, substantial progress was made," he said of the summit.

"This was, in large measure, due to the work done by the prime minister, and others, not only at Gleneagles but in the run up to the conference."

But he questioned the timing of the extra aid and asked "how much will be delivered immediately and how much in the latter half of the decade?"

And Howard called for more specific pledges on the environment.

"The challenge at Gleneagles was not necessarily to agree, there and then, a series of new targets," he said.

"Its task was to provide the impetus an agreement of that kind – one that binds in the US, China and India as well as the Kyoto signatories.

"How does the government intend to achieve this through the 'dialogue' which will now take matters forward?"