Blair to visit Africa
The Prime Minister will today fly out to Ethiopia for the second meeting of the Commission for Africa.
The trip comes only days after Tony Blair left hospital after treatment for a heart condition. His aides say the Prime Minister is feeling “fresh and alert” and would be following his doctor’s advice.
Mr Blair has pledged to put Africa, along with climate change, at the centre of the UK’s combined Presidencies of the G8 and the EU next year. The report from the Commission for Africa, due out in the spring, is expected to feed into the G8 agenda.
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) emphasised on Monday that the important point about the Commission was that it is being produced with Africa, not for Africa by the West, hence the importance of the meeting taking place in Addis Ababa.
Africa, he stated, “should not feel that any solution was being imposed on it but should be leading the way, supported by the rest of the world, in helping to resolve its own problems”.
The PMOS stressed though that no one should expect instant solutions to Africa’s problems and it is important to study the problems in detail.
International Development Secretary Hilary Benn will be attending the meeting along with Tony Blair, but Gordon Brown, who sits on the Commission, will remain in London.
