Commission for Africa

"The proof of the Africa Commission’s worth will be in the political will and energy it manages to drum up to turn its recommendations into reality," said a spokesperson for Oxfam.

The Gleneagles summit pledged what the Commission report had asked for in terms of a doubling of aid and significant extensions of multilateral debt relief.

The summit did, however, promise to implement 50 of the Commission's 90 recommendations including: $36bn of debt relief in 100% debt cancellation delivered for 19 countries; the launch of the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF); doubling previous levels of aid for basic education, to remove school fees, and to scale up efforts to boost girls’ participation and female literacy; two million additional Africans given antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS; immunisation programmes which have stopped the transmission of polio everywhere except Nigeria; training 20,000 more African peacekeepers; tightening controls on the trade in small arms; working more closely with the African Union and its New Partnership for Africa (Nepad) programme to make African governments more accountable to their people; pressing rich nations to ratify the UN Convention on Corruption; putting in place measures to return cash looted by dictators from Western banks to the legitimate owners; and using export credits to clamp down on Western companies who pay bribes.

The Panel, chaired by Kofi Annan, is composed of Michel Camdessus, Peter Eigen, Bob Geldof, Graça Machel, Strive Masiyiwa, Linah Mohohlo, Robert Rubin, and Tidjane Thiam.

It called for continued and expanding aid from developed countries, but reiterated the importance of making progress on increasing Africa's share of global trade.