The sight of the leaders of several African countries arriving in Tokyo this week to demand that the leaders of the G8 honour their promises on aid, debt relief and trade prompts many competing thoughts. What is the purpose of this elite club of mostly rich nations, for a start? And are its promises worth the paper they are written on, given that all the hullabaloo surrounding the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, where many of those promises were made, seems ultimately to have achieved so little? So much for the G8's heavily publicised pledge to “Make Poverty History”.