G8: Africa - They're broke and they owe billions, but they won't get debt relief
The talk is of helping Africa, but if Africans hope to benefit from the G8's largesse they will need to be living in the right place. Should their country have the wrong kind of government, the wrong kind of economy, an internal conflict or vast natural resources, then no matter how poor the people (and some are as poor as anyone in the world), this summit may do nothing at all for them. More than a third of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lives in these countries, which together form the continent's Out Crowd. Here are ten of them.
Angola (population 11 million): The UN Human Development Index (HDI) ranks the world's nations according to measures such as life expectancy and average income. Angola is 12th from the bottom in the HDI 2004. Now beginning to rebuild after a 25-year civil war, it has a million people living in hunger. It owes $22.5bn and pays out $1bn in debt servicing every year, but because it has large oil reserves the debt is officially deemed "sustainable". For this reason, it can't have debt relief.
Burundi (six million): Fifth from bottom of the HDI, Burundi is a stricken place. Life expectancy is just 42 years; 70 per cent of people live in poverty and half of all children are malnourished. By some measures it is the poorest place on the planet. The country owes more than $1bn but after a decade of civil war it barely has a functioning economy to sustain payments. In better times, coffee accounted for 80 per cent of its export earnings, but world prices are now so low it can't compete. Even though the war appears to be over, Burundi does not qualify for debt relief.
Central African Republic (four million): Ranked eighth from the bottom of the HDI, Car is a place where average earnings are less than a dollar a day and one in eight adults has HIV/Aids. So undeveloped is it that the entire country has just 250 miles of paved road. Though its debt burden is proportionately huge - at more than five times its annual export earnings - it is excluded from debt relief. One reason, bizarrely, appears to be that it is in arrears on its repayments (because it can't pay); another is its chronic instability, with frequent coups and attempted coups.
Cote d'Ivoire (17 million): Seven years ago, when the west's debt relief programme began, Cote d'Ivoire was on the brink of qualifying. Then there was a coup and a civil war and it couldn't meet IMF/World Bank requirements. A major cocoa exporter, it was once prosperous, but has suffered decades of decline and is 15th from bottom in the HDI. Its debts are high at $17bn but, as the peace process falters, a write-off is not on the cards.
Kenya (32 million): In a quarter-century of grossly corrupt rule by Daniel arap Moi, which ended in 2002, Kenya ran up debts of $6bn. Moi's final decade in power brought a disastrous economic slump, a drought in 2000 and one of Africa's worst HIV/Aids epidemics. Half the population does not have safe drinking water and one in six lives in extreme poverty, yet Kenya's $500m debt service burden is officially "sustainable".
Liberia (three million): Though fertile and rich in mineral resources, Liberia is a basket case without an economy to speak of. Fifteen years of civil war have scattered the population and destroyed the infrastructure to the point where statistics are virtually meaningless, although it is said that four out of five adults are unemployed. The country's foreign debt exceeds $3bn, but cancellation is not under consideration.
Nigeria (133 million): Africa's most populous and potentially its richest country owes $34bn, of which $20bn is arrears and non-payment penalties, mostly on loans incurred by dictators in the 1980s. Now among the 20 poorest countries in the world, Nigeria spends 13 times as much on debt service as on health. It won't get debt relief because of its oil; because of a belief that any benefits would go to corrupt administrators; and because these sums of money are simply too big for the west to set aside.
Somalia (eight million): For well over a decade Somalia has existed without a government, so (like Liberia) it is beyond the international economic pale and doesn't even figure on most lists of the poorest or most undeveloped countries. Regular clean water supplies are a rarity; preventable or treatable diseases such as cholera and malaria are rampant; infant mortality and death in childbirth are commonplace and in many areas malnutrition is the norm. Nobody is even thinking about Somalia's debts.
Sudan (38 million): Long riven by conflict, Africa's biggest country has debts of $15bn, a figure that is already high in proportion to the size of the economy, but is sure to rise sharply because of arrears and penalties. With the help of increasing oil exports and the apparent settlement of the civil war in the south, the economy seems to be turning a corner, but Sudan will never be able to pay its debts. The government, however, remains a pariah, especially in view of events in Darfur, and it is on nobody's list for debt relief.
Zimbabwe (12.5 million): Speaking of pariahs, fertile as it is, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe can't feed itself; basic commodities are in short supply and production of the main export crop, tobacco, has slumped. The economy has shrunk by a quarter in five years; 70 per cent of Zimbabweans now live in poverty; and inflation may be 500 per cent. Worse, the country has the highest incidence of HIV/Aids in the world. Repayments on $4.5bn of foreign debt ceased last year and arrears are stacking up, but there will be no debt forgiveness for Zimbabwe at Gleneagles.
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