July 8, 2017 — As the G20 summit is over in Hamburg, the G20 leaders have agreed on a final communiqué.

Jamie Drummond, co-founder of ONE, said:

“Too many in the G20 failed to play their part in Germany’s proposed new Partnership with Africa. This will be the African century and Chancellor Merkel wanted the G20 to get on the right side of history, but internal strife and division scattered the G20 away from this visionary path.

 

Some foundations for future progress on the Africa partnership have been laid, but the G20 must firm these up fast if they are to invest at the scale needed into the education, employment and empowerment of Africa’s dynamic youth boom.

 

Education: This is significant forward momentum but much more needs to be done to get the 130 million girls denied an education globally back where they belong: in school.

 

Women’s Entrepreneurship Facility: Economically empowering women is a huge priority and this facility has potential but only if followed through with more transparency about whether sources of funding are truly additional, have any  negative conditions, and the facility’s governance truly represents those it wants to empower.

 

Fighting famine: The 20 million people at risk of starvation need all the help they can get as soon as they can get it. Hopefully the famine fighting funds pledged by the American congress in May will now start to move far faster and other G20 member states will also have step up with additional pledges.

 

Compacts: These promised much but too many G20 partners missed the memo and failed to contribute. The flimsy foundations must now be firmed up, follow through and improved, especially for Africa’s more fragile states.

 

Rural Youth Employment: The commitment to boost employ over a million more rural youth in Africa could prove a useful portion of the new partnership.

 

Corruption: the G20 fell short of committing to expose who drives those “getaway cars of the corrupt”, anonymous shell companies and trusts. The EU must now do better through their Anti Money Laundering directive.