The current hype surrounding the Group of Eight industrial powers might actually be right: Gleneagles could truly be a breakthrough for Africa. Tony Blair, the British prime minister and this year’s host of the G8 summit, has taken a meeting normally reserved for western-oriented economic issues and turned it into a n enormous second chance for the cursed continent. Suddenly, after decades of misguided and misdirected aid, to Africa, there is hope that the world will finally get smart about how to help Africa’s its long-suffering people.

Mr Blair already worked wonders in Washington when he secured agreement by President George W. Bush, the US president, ’s agreement to alleviate the debt burden of some of the world’s poorest countries, mostly in Africa. And There is every prospect that – whatever the fate of the precise 0.7 per cent target or chancellor Gordon Brown’sthe frontloaded International Finance Facility proposed by Gordon Brown, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer – there will be agreement on more direct aid, better focused on areas of real need, particularly in the health sector.