Richard Dowden: Africa is likely to get trampled by the West

During the Cold War Africans used to explain their marginalisation with the proverb: "When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled." After the Cold War, Africa was even more marginalised and an extra line was added: "But when elephants make love the grass gets trampled even more."

Officially, Africa is top of the agenda at the G8 summit at Evian but it may get trampled underfoot again, depending on how President George Bush gets on with his French hosts and fellow G8 members over rebuilding Iraq. At stake is the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).

Nepad is a creed, setting out Africa's development aims and governance principles and adopted - in theory - by all 52 countries in the African Union.

The best thing about Nepad is that it accepts that Africa must take responsibility for its own future and not look to the rest of the world to save it.

But it also states that Africa cannot make it alone and the G8 leaders responded last year with a Plan of Action, committing themselves to a range of policies for Africa, including peace-making, helping improve its governance, creating a better environment for investment, reducing their own agricultural subsidies and improving market access for African goods, combating Aids and helping provide better education and health.

But there is a strong suspicion that most African leaders regard it as a new hymn sheet from which they must sing for their aid. Like hymns, the words may be beautiful and the feelings divine but understanding them, let alone following the precepts, are far from the minds of many leaders.

The same charge could be levelled at the G8. For all their proclaimed belief in the free market the G8 leaders are not prepared to free the world market in food and give Africa a chance to earn its own living. Trade is far more important than aid for Africa but the G8 leaders have chosen the easier but more ambiguous virtues of giving aid. In terms of sheer quantity, the continent has had a Marshall Aid plan several times over and has little to show for it.

But there are some pluses too. It is just possible that the G8 leaders might make a move on African debt. The debt-forgiveness initiative launched at a previous G8 summit is only working for a handful of countries and they might order a review that could lead to the establishment of different criteria for debt relief.

The next year will be crucial for the survival of Nepad. After Evian the chairmanship of the G8 will pass to the United States, which will not put Africa high on the agenda. Washington's policy is to divide Africa into goodies and baddies, and divert the benefits of its aid programme to countries that open themselves up to American goods and investment and do America's bidding at the United Nations.

The questions are whether Nepad will survive a year of American neglect and whether, without the promised G8 support, African rulers will still remain committed to its precepts. After all, it is supposed to be their plan.

Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society