Making Poverty a History in Africa: The Role of the G8

Abstract

The issue of Africa living with the scourge of endemic poverty is not a recent trend. This is for the fact that poverty is one of the major factors defining the underdeveloped and developing third world societies world-wide and Africa in particular. Several factors have been identified in this study as being responsible for the perpetuation of poverty in Africa. These include war and armed conflicts, illiteracy, poor agricultural practices and land owning policies, poor water and sanitation, health and education, corruption, among others. The G8 we know is a forum of the eight leading industrialized nations of the world. In their summits, they have reached a number of policy agreements aimed at fighting poverty and eradicating it to the point of making it a history. There were theoretically some arguments for and against the dependence on exogenously induced economic measures to eradicate poverty rather than the endogenous measures. The dependency and the modernization schools of thought proffered their solutions to the scourge of poverty in Africa. In all, it was seen in this study that the G8 has made few efforts in line with debt cancellation, aids and technical assistance as well as in the areas of trade liberalization. All aimed at fighting poverty in Africa but it was discovered that these are not enough as their failures were numerous. It was therefore suggested that African countries should look inwards for the solution to their poverty. If not, if the G8 is really serious and committed there are many more things they need to do if they will actually help in making poverty a history in Africa.