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G8 and G20 Summits

I would not say that the summit was complacent. It was my first G8 summit, and I was struck by the fact that about half the sessions were opened up to visiting leaders from the African Union, Algeria, Egypt and elsewhere in Africa, so that they could keep reminding the richest countries in the world of what they had promised to do. The G8 cannot substitute for the work of the United Nations and other food programmes—it is not an emergency organisation—but I do not think that it is complacent about these challenges. At least, for the first time, it is checking up on itself a bit more, and that can only be a good thing.