Poverty in Africa Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Poverty in Africa - Essay Example This has led not only to the formation but also to strengthening of G8 from time to time. The fabric of G8 is engulfing in its fold ever more areas of security, trade, development and other human concerns including environment and sustainable growth and advancement perspectives. The 'collapse' of the Brettonwoods system in 1971, formation of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in 1967, Yom Kippur War of 1973 the 1973 Oil Crisis, economic recession and stagflation in 1970s are the major factors leading to emergence of G8 (Tinbergen, 1977. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis ). Their concern for poverty also has apparent reasons. Among developing and underdeveloped nations, Africa alone has about 170 million people living in subhuman circumstances with almost nothing but garbage to eat daily. This is, indeed, a vast potential of human resource going waste while living under severe conditions. Future of the world, to a great extent, lies in proper prospective development of these widespread pockets of poverty and squalor. G8, as such, has evolved from a 'Library Group' to G8 today. Since 1975, the heads of state or government of the major industrial democracies have been meeting annually to deal with the major economic and political issues facing their domestic societies and the international community as a whole. The six countries at the first summit, held at Rambouillet, France, in November 1975, were France, the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan and Italy (sometimes referred to as the G6). They were joined by Canada at the San Juan Summit of 1976 in Puerto Rico, and by the European Community at the London Summit of 1977. From then on, membership in the Group of Seven, or G7, was fixed, although 15 developing countries' leaders met with the G7 leaders on the eve of the 1989 Paris Summit, and the USSR and then Russia participated G8: Poverty in Africa in a post-summit dialogue with the G7 since 1991. Starting with the 1994 Naples Summit, the G7 met with Russia at each summit (referred to as the P8 or Political Eight). The Denver Summit of the Eight was a milestone, marking full Russian participation in all but financial and certain economic discussions; and the 1998 Birmingham Summit saw full Russian participation, giving birth to the Group of Eight, or G8 (although the G7 continued to function along side the formal summits). At the Kananaskis Summit in Canada in 2002, it was announced that Russia would host the G8 Summit in 2006, thus completing its process of becoming a full member (http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/what_is_g8.html see also http://www.g8online.org/ , http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/ ). G8 and Millennium Summit Goals G8, at the latest Gleneagles Summit, has covered several areas of contemporary challenges to international community. One of the major concerns has been the question of poverty in