As the previous page in this section has noted, public pressure at G8 Summits and elsewhere have helped bring some of these issues to the fore. Yet,
Partly due to poor media coverage, lack of full democratic accountability of the rich country leaders, and a number of other factors, not much has actually been done, despite rhetoric.
The rich countries remain in controlling position, demanding (some might say bribing) poor countries to follow certain practices.
Various African commentators have noted that while public protest in the West is welcome, real change will have to come from within. That is,
There is a risk that even the protests will be along the lines of telling Africans how to get out of their problems
Instead, what Africa nations really need is to be allowed to stand on their own feet and be allowed to solve their own problems, and where needed, as an equal to outsiders provding much-welcomed assistance.
Aid is not a matter of charity; it is justice (as much of the poverty, debt and resulting deaths of millions is due to unfair debt imposed by former imperial and colonial countries on newly independent states to repay colonial costs).
If that outside assistance, even from protesters, is more like prescriptions and continually implies that Africa cannot help itself, then it feels like old colonial style paternal attitudes, which would not be as welcome.
Small concessions are not the full deal; they are only the beginning
The whole G8 Summit, Live 8 concert and public interest comes at a time when a campaign to Make poverty history is fully underway. Yet, as Jubilee Research warns, short term achievements that might be possible at the G8 must not mean that deeper issues be forgotten or missed, and is quoted at length: