Hilary Benn

Last month, I was in Rwanda for the tenth anniversary of the genocide that killed 900,000 men, women and children.  I will never forget the wailing and the screaming that could be heard around the national stadium in Kigali as one of the survivors spoke about what had happened to him and his family during those awful days.

Given what took place, it is difficult to believe that Rwanda today is the same country. It still has problems to overcome, but there are signs of real progress.

Ten years on, the country is at peace, the economy is stable and growing, poverty has been reduced, and many of the refugees have returned home.  Rwanda is a symbol of hope to other nations emerging from conflict, and is one of a number of African countries now moving forward.

Many people still see Africa as the continent where nothing works.

True, Sub-Saharan Africa has grown poorer in the last generation.  Half its population live on less than 65 pence a day.  Africa bears the brunt of the worlds Aids epidemic, with 13 million having died of HIV/Aids to date, and 26 million now living with the virus.  A woman in Africa is 100 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than a woman living in Britain. 

And for all these reasons Sub-Saharan Africa is not on course to meet the Millennium Development Goals – the targets which the international community has set itself to reduce poverty, and infant and maternal mortality, and to get all primary school age children into school by 2015. This failure should shame us all, and we have to do something about it.

And yet, it is also true that there are signs of real progress in Africa.

Take conflict, for example. The number of wars has fallen significantly in the past decade. There is peace in Angola, a transitional government in place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and relative stability in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Polio, once the scourge of many lives, is close to eradication.  Mozambique has reduced poverty from 70 per cent to 55 per cent in the last five years and doubled the number of children in school.  Uganda has dramatically increased the number of people attending health clinics by abolishing health charges.

And all of this has happened because of the efforts of African governments themselves, with the support of international donors.

The new Commission for Africa held its first meeting in London today. Painting an accurate picture of Africa's strengths, its weaknesses and its great potential will be a vital part of the Commission's job. It will take a fresh and a hard look at what is working and what isn't.

But above all, it will ask itself what more the international community can and must do to help improve the prospects of the continent.

The establishment of the Commission by the prime minister demonstrates his personal commitment to use the UK presidencies of the G8 and European Union in 2005 to make a  difference on Africa; a commitment also shown by the UK's pledge to increase its aid to Africa to £1 billion a year by 2005/06.

But this will not be a UK Commission. Half the commissioners are African, and the work of the Commission will involve as many Africans and African organisations as possible, as well as inviting participation from many others around the world who care about Africa and want to make a difference to its future.

It will also support and encourage the best of what's happening already, in particular the African leadership shown through the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NePAD) and the African Union.

The Commission's report will aim to be comprehensive. It will certainly address difficult questions. And its recommendations may confront us in the international community with tough choices about the things we have to do next. Personally, I believe that there are three big challenges we face. 

The first is finance.  When the world met in Monterrey two years ago we identified that we needed to double aid to about $100 billion a year if we are going to meet the Millennium Development Goals.   We have to address the question "how are we going to get the additional money?". It will not be good enough to come to the end of 2005 and say that we couldn't do it.  That is why Gordon Brown’s proposal for an International Finance Facility is the one practical solution on the table, which, if it wins enough support, will enable us as an international community to raise the finance we need. 

The second is trade, because we have to get the world trade talks moving again. We know that the benefit that would flow from this to developing countries would be worth, on some estimates, three times the value of all the aid the rich world currently gives.  

And the third is HIV/Aids, because unless we increase our resources, determination and willingness to work together to fight this epidemic, then it threatens to undermine development and many of the gains that have been made in the past generation.  

So 2005 is, therefore, going to be a year of great expectations.  There will be a lot of campaigning, many events and much questioning.  And the fundamental challenge we will face, both moral and political, is that unless we act to tackle poverty, injustice and inequality then we will never have a safe and secure world, wherever we live.

The Commission will be an important contribution to trying to ensure that the prospects for the next generation in Africa are better than the experience of the last.  We owe it to that next generation to make sure that we succeed.