Decision makers inherit the stage

EDINBURGH - The rock stars may have packed up their instruments and gone home and the vast crowds dispersed, but the climax of the campaign to bring justice to Africa's poor has yet to be reached.

Now it is the politicians' turn to take centre stage as eight of the world's most powerful men prepare to discuss the future of the continent at Gleneagles.

The Make Poverty History caravan is winding its way towards Edinburgh where protesters have been gathering. After the energy and glamour of Live8, organiser Bob Geldof hopes a million people will descend on the Scottish capital tomorrow to reiterate the demands made by the pop stars on Sunday.

Police have assembled a ring of steel around Gleneagles in anticipation of a violent rerun of anarchist protests that have marred previous G8 summits.

There are already signs that hopes of sealing a historic deal to end poverty in Africa on the crest of a wave of global compassion may be about to fall short.

Two members of the coalition, Oxfam and ActionAid, said yesterday that the deals on the table at Gleneagles were woefully inadequate to bring about the kind of fundamental change envisaged by Geldof and his supporters.

They warned that the additional US$25 billion ($36.7 billion) aid promised by the European Union, United States, Canada and Japan, falls short of the US$50 billion the United Nations says is needed from 2006. Most of the new money will not come on-stream until 2010, leading to a cumulative shortfall of 100 billion.

Full debt relief was confined to only 14 of sub-Saharan Africa's worst basket-case economies, not all of them as demanded by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa this year.

And the much-dreamed-of deal to open the developed world's markets to African producers remained as elusive as ever, Hilary Benn, Britain's Secretary of State for International Development, warned.

The success of Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in elevating the issue to the top of the policy agenda may have raised expectations too high, charities warned.

Brown insisted some of the fundamental pillars of a new deal for Africa - 100 per cent debt relief for the poorest countries and a doubling in aid - were already in place.

But Steve Tibbett, ActionAid's head of policy and campaigns, said: "Look behind the rhetoric and the reality falls far short. We are still nowhere near a deal that will effectively tackle global poverty."

Nearly 30 million people have sent text messages to show their support for the campaign. Sail8, in which it was hoped a flotilla of yachts loaded with French supporters would sail into Portsmouth, fizzled out. Only four yachts and a motor boat made the voyage, with not a single French protester.

- INDEPENDENT