In light of 11 September and in a week when the Prime Minister is visiting Africa, it is timely that we should be debating the New Partnership for Africa's Development, which was formerly known as the new Africa initiative. I welcome the Prime Minister's visit and the Government's commitment to Africa, but Africa's chronic crisis will not be solved by one man on one visit. The Government clearly recognise that the new partnership will need the support of wealthier countries to succeed. I agree with the sentiments that the Prime Minister expressed at the Labour party conference following 11 September, when he said that the state of Africa was a scar on the conscience of the world. If we focus on Africa, we can help to heal that scar; if we do not, it will become deeper and angrier.

A coalition against Africa's poverty is crucial. It is obviously no good the UK Government performing well on debt relief, for example, if the G8 coalition of which it is a part also includes underperformers. A coalition means collective responsibility, and the new partnership can succeed only if it is built on a firm coalition, which includes several players, the first of which is the United States.

Friends of America must wonder whether it is delivering enough. President Bush's state of the union speech mentioned evil five times, but poverty not once. Of course, it is right that we must fight terrorism throughout the world, but we must also fight poverty. Colin Powell is on record as asserting:

"While Africa may be important, it doesn't fit into the national strategic interests, as far as I can see them."

We shall have to persuade colleagues in Congress and friends in the American Government that the United States could do more. The United States claims to be the largest development donor in the world, but that does not change the fact that it also gives the most parsimonious percentage of development assistance, at just 0.1 per cent. of gross national income. President Bush will attend the forthcoming financial summit in Monterrey, but it is questionable whether he intends to announce that the United States will increase overseas development and assistance. Instead, it looks as if he will offer poor countries a change in the way in which the International Development Association operates. That might look attractive in the short term, but it will be unsustainable in the longer term, and it is not what Africa needs. Africa - particularly sub-Saharan Africa - needs all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries to meet the target of 0.7 per cent. of GNI for overseas development as soon as possible.

The second part of the foundation that is necessary for the new partnership to succeed is the European Union. Its communiqu� following the first Africa-Europe ministerial meeting last year stated:

"The European Union welcomes the New African Initiative which reflects many of the essential elements of the EU's own external relations policy."

There must, however, be concern, because seven of the top 10 recipients of EU external assistance are middle-income eastern European countries, which will soon join the EU. Last year, Poland received three times more aid than Uganda, which is the only African country in the top 10. The Secretary of State told the Select Committee on International Development that the amount of European Union development aid that was given to poor countries was actually dropping and was now less than 40 per cent. We must, therefore, persuade colleagues in the EU, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers that the EU's development assistance and budgets must focus much more on poverty and on Africa.

The third part of the foundation of the new partnership must be African countries themselves. Nigeria's President Obasanjo accurately asserted that the resolution of conflict will be central to the success of the new partnership.

For African countries, the rhetoric of partnership features prominently. As a press release by the South African Department of Foreign Affairs succinctly notes, the new partnership will be

"a common vision and a firm and shared conviction ... to eradicate poverty and to place their countries...on a path of sustainable growth and development, and at the same time to participate actively in the world economy and body politic".

Those may not be new commitments. They are the conditions for which the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have provided aid for years. Importantly, they are now clearly stated African commitments. We need a firm partnership that involves the United States, the European Union, which obviously includes the United Kingdom, and African countries. We must then consider how that could impact on specific policy areas.

The first crucial building block of the new partnership will be Africa's health and education. HIV/AIDS infects someone in Africa every 25 seconds. Even those better off countries such as South Africa and Botswana are suffering catastrophic levels of HIV infection that may kill off a quarter of young men and women in the next few years. That is a fairly horrific figure.

Wealthier countries are clearly failing to deliver more directly for two reasons. First, the global health fund has revived only a fraction of the $10 billion that it needs to combat the pandemic, and we need to ensure that other countries contribute to that fund. AIDS is undoubtedly fuelled by poverty. Secondly, wealthier countries are partially failing on drug patents. I welcome the declaration signed at Doha on TRIPs - trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights - but it remains undecided whether developing countries can import cheap copies of patented drugs from third countries. That would benefit only countries that have their own manufacturing capacity, and that often excludes Africa.

Education is equally important. According to UNICEF, infants born to mothers with no formal education are twice as likely to die before their first birthday as those born to mothers with post-primary school education. Again, the European Union is the most culpable, as it allocates only 3 per cent. of aid to basic education through the European development fund, and the gap between disbursements and commitments can mean that as much as 40 per cent. of aid is returned to member states. That must change in order to meet Africa's needs. Furthermore, the lack of public funds now means that in countries such as Tanzania, Ghana and Zambia many poor people cannot afford basic education. In Zambia, as much as three quarters of basic education spending must be met directly by poor parents themselves.

Poor countries are sick because they are poor, but they are also poor because they are sick. That need is even more apparent when we consider the other two building blocks of the new partnership - debt relief and access to market economies. The new partnership clearly sets out how debt relief should be linked with costed poverty reduction: wealthier countries should commit themselves to deeper debt relief for African countries that show a commitment to poverty reduction. However, I am not sure that it happening under current World Bank criteria. The debt payments of Zambia, Tanzania and Cameroon exceed their combined health and education budgets. The poor people in those countries will see the World Bank giving in principle, but taking in practice.

The World Bank's constriction on development sustainability is compounded when we consider the economics of African countries since 11 September. Commodity prices are falling. African countries rely on coffee, cotton and tobacco, but the prices of those commodities have already fallen by 7.4 per cent. this year; and the International Monetary Fund expects them to fall even further. We need to ensure that Africa is given a strong voice in institutions such as World Trade Organisation, but adequate economic access for African goods to the markets of Europe and the developed world.

The erosion of Africa's share in world trade between 1970 and 1993 represents a lost annual income of $68 billion. We have to work out how African economies might benefit from increased trade; that must mean rich countries allowing quota and tariff-free access to their markets. It is particularly important that African agriculture is not undermined by unequal competition with industrialised agriculture.

The new partnership will want to emphasise the importance of developing the private sector in Africa and promote foreign direct investment. Such investment has never been high there; it has fallen dramatically since the Asian crises. Indeed, the Financial Times recently observed that sub-Saharan Africa's neglected ports had significantly held back the progress of their economies.

We will all watch with interest the emerging Africa infrastructure fund that was announced last week. Perhaps the most telling sign is that the nine African countries that are experiencing the worst civil conflicts all have one thing in common. Each has a per capita GNP income of less than $200. Conflict resolution will be crucially important to the success of the new partnership. The onus must be largely on African countries, and I support the comments made by the Prime Minister today in The Times. Some of us were disappointed that the countries of southern Africa were not more effective in helping, for example, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe find a resolution for that troubled country's current difficulties.

I have no doubt that the world will meet the United Nations 2015 targets on poverty, not least because of the improvements in China and India. The danger is that as four continents of the world progress, one - Africa - is at best standing still, and at worst, going backwards. Of course, it is an important matter and it is right that the Prime Minister should be there. None of us should be under the illusion that unless there is a massive political commitment - involving us as parliamentarians, colleagues in the European Union, colleagues in Congress, and importantly, colleagues in Africa itself - there will not be the progress in Africa that all of us want to see at the start of this new millennium.