n African Renaissance - Tony Blair on the Report of the Commission for Africa : speech

Abstract

There can be no excuse, no defence, no justification for the plight of millions of our fellow human beings in Africa today. There should be nothing that stands in the way of our changing it. That is the simple message from the Commission for Africa report published today. Africa can change for the better. The report shows how. The issue is : do we, together, in Africa and amongst the wealthy nations of our world, have the will? The moral reason is clear. In a world of increasing prosperity and with more people sharing each year in this growing wealth, it is obscenity that should haunt our daily thoughts that four million children will die in Africa this year before their fifth birthday. It's little better that millions more of those children who do survive disease and hunger will be denied even basic schooling and can look forward only to a life of abject poverty.