In 2005, following a massive global campaign, G8 leaders agreed an ambitious package of support to accelerate development in Africa. Eight years on, One’s analysis shows the galvanising effect of the Gleneagles commitments. African leadership, with G8 support, has resulted in major progress in the fight against extreme poverty. Increases in financing for development, through [...]

Prime ministers and presidents generally don’t like global summits. They are a necessary part of the ebb and flow of international diplomacy. But frankly, the majority of summits don’t achieve that much – they usually end in a bland bureaucratic statement which nudges things forward to the next summit. Summits with genuine, long-lasting outcomes are [...]

The beginning of a new year is a good moment to review the Commission for Africa, which was established in early 2004 to consider the situation in Africa and to make recommendations to the G8, which subsequently met in mid-2005 at the Gleneagles Summit hosted by the United Kingdom. It found that Africa was [...]

Late last year, Tony Blair, who set up the Commission for Africa, published an essay arguing that more attention needs to be given to supporting African leaders and their governments’ ability to deliver change. Not Just Aid: How Making Government Work Can Transform Africa reaffirms the argument made by the Commission that development is “not [...]

Both the Commission for Africa’s reports in 2005 and 2010 emphasised the role the private sector had to play in promoting a strong and prosperous Africa - alone and in partnership with others. It was in this vein that the head of the Commission’s Secretariat Myles Wickstead chaired a Business Fights Poverty event in London last [...]

Myles Wickstead, head of the secretariat to the Commission for Africa, was one of a number of high profile contributors to an online debate on a recent report by Youth Business International (YBI) that looked at how to promote youth entrepreneurship through access to capital. YBI’s report, entitled Youth Entrepreneurship: Beyond Collateral, calls for “a [...]

From 20-22 September, world leaders met at the United Nations in New York to discuss progress against the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to agree a global action plan to ensure they are achieved by 2015. The eight MDGs, and targets to measure them, were agreed in 2000. They include goals and targets for halving [...]

The Commission for Africa yesterday held the New York launch of its report to coincide with the start of the Millennium Development Goal Summit in New York. The launch was hosted at the Rockefeller Foundation at the beginning of the week-long Summit which will consider progress against the MDGs, which were set in 2000 as [...]

Tony Blair, who set up and chairs the Commission for Africa, today issued the following message to coincide with the New York launch of the Commission for Africa’s follow up report, Still Our Common Interest. ‘I am not big on anniversaries, as I sadly suspect my wife would confirm. By temperament I am always more [...]

On 13th September 2010, the Commission for Africa launched its follow-up report, Still Our Common Interest, at the British Museum in London.Speeches by Commissioners Tidjane Thiam, Hilary Benn and Bob Geldof were introduced by chair of the British Museum’s trustees and deputy chair of Thomson Reuters, Niall Fitzgerald, who also c0-chairs the Investment Climate Facility [...]