G-8 summit ends amid claims a pittance will go to Africa

With six short words, Tony Blair summed up the summit that was supposed – after countless false starts – to put the world's basket case continent on the road to recovery. "What Africa needs is free trade."

The headlines after the two-day retreat of the G-8 leaders were about the bargain at the heart of this latest attempt to revive Africa: a promise by the latter to put its political house in order, in return for increased aid and investment from the West.

As usual however, the result was depressingly less than met the eye. "The bottom line is that there will be substantially more money flowing to Africa after this meeting," one of the Prime Minister's close aides said. But, if you read the small print, only after strict conditions have been met, if at all.

The catch phrase is "good governance": an end to violence and corruption, a respect for human rights, the rule of law and the democratic process. But even if sub-Saharan Africa manages this, the $6bn (£4bn) per year that it "could" receive (not, it should be noted, "will receive") will make but the smallest dent in the miseries of a continent where 300 million people – half the population – live on $1 a day or less.

Do the maths, and you arrive almost exactly at the amount Canada spent on security arrangements for this idyll of the mighty in the gorgeous Rocky Mountain resort of Kananaskis, far from the pestering media horde 60 miles away at base camp in Calgary.

Nor does $6bn begin to meet the annual "investment gap" of $64bn identified by African leaders themselves in the Nepad initiative (the New Partnership for Africa's Development) which four of them presented in person at Kananaskis. Most important, as Mr Blair tacitly acknowledged, it does not tackle the trade tariffs and subsidies operated by rich nations, which take away jobs and markets from workers and producers in Africa itself.

Beneath the outward unity of the G-8, moreover, lie deep differences, as seven lesser planets revolve around the US sun. Some, like Germany, Italy and Japan, mostly kept quiet. Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, attempted to assert his authority as host, but to little effect

Mr Blair as usual was in the middle, half-supporting his friend George Bush's strictures over Yasser Arafat, but extending a hand towards his other friends in Europe, who were far more forthrightly critical of the US demand that the Palestinians find a new leader.

And then the French, with their elegant barbs. Mr Bush, said President Chirac afterwards with studied ambiguity, "has given the best of himself in this affair" (the affair being aid to Africa). Which of course raises the question, how good is Mr Bush's best? He will visit Africa early next year, but with little sign he relishes the prospect.

At March's UN development summit in Monterrey, he did concede the link between terrorism and its breeding ground of poverty and despair, and announced a 50 per cent increase in US aid, currently a paltry 0.1 per cent of GDP, the lowest proportion of any major industrial country.

Kananaskis was hailed by its participants as a success – a return to the first principles, where leaders gathered informally, far from the attentions of the media to talk frankly about what was on their minds. Not surprisingly, the revived format will be extended to next year's G-8 in France. So too, said President Chirac, will the focus on Africa. But it is a safe bet that, apart from the scenery, nothing much will have changed.