La Germania si avvicina al livello stabilito

<101706201"/><101706200"> NYT 05-04-14

EDITORIAL

<101706202"/> Germany Steps Up to the Plate

s the date rapidly approaches for a big meeting where the leaders of the rich world are supposed to come up with a plan to help lift Africa‘s poor, tired and huddled masses out of poverty, things are starting to get interesting. Last week, Japan announced that it would double its aid to Africa. Granted, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is doing so to better Japan ‘s chances of getting a seat on the United Nations Security Council, according to Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, but so what? Money is money.

And after weeks of hinting, Germany publicly announced that it would meet the United Nations target of increasing foreign assistance to poor countries to 0.7 percent of the gross national product by 2015; indeed, the Germans said they could meet the goal by 2014. Germany‘s United Nations envoy, Gunter Pleuger, said last Thursday that Germany would increase development assistance to 0.35 percent in 2006, 0.5 percent in 2010 and 0.7 percent in 2014.

The German announcement makes it clear that Europe is backing the British prime minister, Tony Blair, in his quest to pry money out of rich countries for Africa when the leaders of Group of 7 industrialized nations meet in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July . Mr. Blair has staked his chairmanship of the G-7 this year on a Marshall Plan for Afric a , and we are hard-pressed to think of a more worthy goal.

The continent is at a crossroads right now, with Africans, after long years of accepting the rule of brutal and corrupt dictators, finally dragging themselves to their feet to stand up and say, “Enough.” But there are two paths they can take.

With help from the rich world, countries like Ethiopia, Mozambique and Liberia can take the route of development and progress , and finally join the rest of the world in enjoying the things that our generation has come to expect: life, liberty and the ability to get from one day to the next with shoes on your feet and food in your stomach. Without that help, those same countries can take the path that cycles back into civil war, poverty and life expectancies so low that 13-year-old girls are considered old women.

Britain announced long ago that it would meet the 0.7 percent target by 2013. France is more than halfway there, at 0.41, and has announced a timetable to get to 0.5 percent by 2007 and 0.7 percent by 2012. From America – the stingiest of all, compared with the rest of the G-7, donating just 0.18 percent of its gross national product to foreign aid – there has not been a word about getting to 0.7 percent by any date in this century. We sincerely hope that President Bush plans to come up with something before July – even if he does it only because his most loyal ally has asked it of him.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company