Tanzania and Morocco: Does Debt Relief Really Work?
The G8 Summit met this past summer in Gleneagles, Scotland in July for a week long summit in order to address pressing world issues. The BBC describes the G8, "With no headquarters, budget or permanent staff, the Group of Eight is an informal but exclusive body whose members set out to tackle global challenges through discussion and action," (Profile:G8). The forefront issue of the summit this year pushed especially by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was helping African countries through debt forgiveness, and aid. Among the goals set by the G8, was the pledged to give $50 billion in aid by 2010, and debt forgiveness for Africa's poorest 18 nations. (For a complete list of all the pledges see endnotes)
The majority of the goals were focused around the African continent. It called for debt forgiveness, a big boost in aid, improved access to HIV drugs, and encouraged African leaders to commit to democracy. A new element helped to push the awareness of the pressing needs in Africa. Sir Bob Geldof, a 70's British Rock/Pop star, organized a campaign called Live 8 which was a series of concerts all around the world, where celebrities put on performances and massive amounts of people gathered in support of putting pressure on the leaders of the G8 summit in order to bring awareness to the African cause. "A key part of the summit has been the unprecedented opportunity it offered for civil society to take part in the central deliberations," said Professor Kirton director of the University of Toronto G8 research group, "The Make Poverty History and Live 8 campaigns played the most important role thus far for any G8 summit by showing how civil society can exert real pressure and influence on the agenda and outcome." Though the question remains, is the G-8 as effective as Mr. Geldof believes or are his efforts whole heartedly ineffective? In order to answer this question we will compare two less developed African countries', Morocco and Tanzania, economic growth
The majority of the goals were focused around the African continent. It called for debt forgiveness, a big boost in aid, improved access to HIV drugs, and encouraged African leaders to commit to democracy. A new element helped to push the awareness of the pressing needs in Africa. Sir Bob Geldof, a 70's British Rock/Pop star, organized a campaign called Live 8 which was a series of concerts all around the world, where celebrities put on performances and massive amounts of people gathered in support of putting pressure on the leaders of the G8 summit in order to bring awareness to the African cause. "A key part of the summit has been the unprecedented opportunity it offered for civil society to take part in the central deliberations," said Professor Kirton director of the University of Toronto G8 research group, "The Make Poverty History and Live 8 campaigns played the most important role thus far for any G8 summit by showing how civil society can exert real pressure and influence on the agenda and outcome." Though the question remains, is the G-8 as effective as Mr. Geldof believes or are his efforts whole heartedly ineffective? In order to answer this question we will compare two less developed African countries', Morocco and Tanzania, economic growth