On Tuesday the first formal session of the embattled British Prime Ministers Commission for Africa took place. The commission of 14 including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, South Africa’s Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel and Dr K. Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and Live Aid hero and former Rock star turned global campaigner against poverty, Bob Geldof, was appointed earlier this year by Blair to study the causes of poverty in Africa.

The commission is also required to recommend concrete actions that can be taken globally to arrest the deteriorating condition of Africa in relation to other continents of the world in terms of growth and development.

The commission faces a lot of cynicism. This is understandable given the fact that the causes of poverty in Africa are not unknown. There have been too many reports on the condition of Africa. Therefore to many critics what has been lacking is the global political will to help Africa and Africans to develop the political will to help themselves.

The Blair Commission also invites parallels to a previous commission, the Willy Brandt Commission, of the 1980s. It made the right noises but its not-so-radical recommendations were not acted upon by the forces that matter internationally who had the power to reverse the image of Africa as the poor cousins of the rest of humanity.

Enthusiasts for the Blair initiative have three main arguments. One, Willy Brandt’s Commission was composed of ex-heads of government, principally former German Chancellor Willy Brandt himself and former British Prime minister, Edward Heath. It could only recommend but had no power or authority to put its pocket where its mouth was. Inevitably, the commission’s report became yet another document of pious hopes that governments could pay lip service to but not act upon without any political repercussions domestically or internationally. But this one has the backing of a sitting head of a major government and the representation of other powerful countries including the USA and Europe.

Two, the Blair Commission will benefit from two unprecedented historic coincidences. Tony Blair and Britain will be heading both the Vultures Club of the worlds dominant economic powers, the G8 and its first cousin, the European Union. And the British Premier would like to put Africa on top of the agenda. Finally, Blair’s people insist that he is very committed to Africa and would like to use all his powers to convince other global leaders to do something for the continent.

Now let us look at the other side of the argument. On Brandt’s Commission I will agree that an assembly of ex-this or ex-that could not have had any power of enforcement but only be hopeful of influence. However, the Brandt Commission failed not because of that but because it sought to realign Africa within the same global unequal economic relationship that has continued to disadvantage our peoples and other developing countries. It did not challenge the assumptions, it merely called for a pious change of heart from the beneficiaries of this systematic exploitation without asking for a fundamental change of the system.

It relied too much on the goodwill of the west without any faith in the ability of the poor and exploited peoples of the world to change their condition for the better, even though history teaches us that the goodness of oppressors is not enough and that reforms do not happen unless those who are oppressed are organised and able to resist to the point of threatening the whole system.

So a strategy that concentrates on mere change of heart at the top is doomed to become just preaching. Is the Blair Commission different in any way? It is dominated by Westerners! Even at the governmental level, Blair chose his African partners instead of going through Africa’s own multilateral organisations be they regional or continental (AU). If there is no African consensus during the process, why should there be one after the report?

The voice of civil society in Africa is absent and even that of Europe has to rely on the maverick Geldof. One has to surrender disbelief to believe that the historic coincidence of Blair holding the G8 and EU Presidency in 2005 will make any difference to Africa. First, the G8 has had Africa on its agenda since but especially from its Genoa to Canada meetings.

The African pushers of the NEPAD agenda had false hope encouraged by Blair that a window of opportunity existed for the G8 to make a difference but where has that left them and their ‘kneepad’ now? As for Europe, the reputation of Blair and the influence of Britain are in grave doubt. He will be heading the EU at a time when his country may be in the middle of an election campaign to be followed by a rancorous referendum on Europe. Is this the prime minister that would influence his European counterparts to renew any commitment to Africa? A prime minister that has shown that his commitment to being poodle to Bush against Europe, the UN and the rest of the world, has lost any authority or influence to play a missionary for Africa.

And as for Blairs alleged commitment to Africa, I ask myself: how many British people will buy a used car from their prime minister now? But more importantly there is no shortage of reports, conferences, and workshops on Africa: Millennium Development Goals (MDG), UN Action Plan for Africa, G8 Action Plan and others. In Africa itself we have a whole raft of home grown initiatives from the African Alternative to Structural Adjustment Programmes. It is not words that Africa needs but concrete action from its peoples and the international community.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.

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