A Sad Coincidence

Finally, after two years of struggling to get my thoughts on paper, I finished my book on aid to Africa yesterday.  I first began it two months before I was elected, but with the furious pace of political life, it took far longer than anticipated.Titled Foreign Aid and the Africa Dilemma, it represents my own thoughts concerning the negativity often expressed about humanitarian assistance to Africa by countering with my own "on the ground" experience there and the many successes presently occurring on the continent.  The construction of thousands of new schools in African countries, effective programming on HIV/AIDS prevention, increasing access to markets, and a more progressive political leadership in some countries have some thinking that Africa could be on the verge of a cultural, political and economic renaissance.  My own view is that, despite many signs of progress, the continent's future won't be assured unless the Western world maintains its interest by supporting ethical governments and fulfilling the aid and development commitments so clearly marked out in the 2002 G-8 summit in Kananaskis and the similar gathering of political leaders in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005.It was therefore a bittersweet day yesterday, when I read that Canada has once again fallen short of its commitment at the current G-8 meeting in Japan.  Our failure to show strong leadership at the international level at such a delicate time could well ruin the hopes so many have concerning Africa's future.  Moreover, it will leave the field open for all those pessimists who deride the continent's fate as hopeless, citing the usual suspects of corruption, backwardness and moral laxity.When I first began the book in September 2006, there was an excitement in the air that perhaps the world was ready to take the steps necessary to bring Africa into its rightful place on the world's stage.  Yet all signs from the G-8 meeting in Japan yesterday seem to be telling us that the visionary days of assisting Africa might well be a thing of the past.For those who care deeply about the people of Africa, yesterday represented a deep setback.  For me, it was a troubling day with a sad coincidence.  Upon finishing a book, an author should feel a certain flush of accomplishment.  But for me, world events, and a lack of political will, could well prove the death knell for much of what I had aspired for in writing the manuscript in the first place.