Successive G8 summits have been rooted in the idea that meetings of powerful men can change the world, but what impact have they made?

Britain, which chairs this week's meeting, has placed African development and climate change at the top of the agenda. Activist groups across the world have raised expectations on what the eight world leaders gathering at Gleneagles might achieve.

The hype surrounding this year’s event bears little comparison with the low-key meeting hosted by the United States a year ago.

Overshadowed by the war in Iraq, the 2004 summit was held in Sea Island, Georgia. There was no anti-poverty campaign and certainly no music concert to raise awareness of the event across the world.

Rather, the American organisers chose the meeting’s remote location to avoid any repetition of the trouble that beset former events – most notably, the 2001 summit in Genoa.

The Italian meeting remains best remembered for the ferocity of anti-capitalist violence, which led to the death of Carlo Giuliani, an activist who was shot by an Italian policeman. The decision to hold this year’s summit in Gleneagles, which is 40 miles away from Edinburgh, was made with such previous violence in mind.

However, the Georgia summit did include a focus on Africa. The leaders present agreed to extend a debt relief programme for poor countries, but fell short of demands for a total write-off of loans.

The American-hosted event also stressed the need to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict as part of an initiative for political and economic reform in the broader Middle East.

A year earlier, in Evian in France, the G8 nations had focused on the need for rich countries to rework their economies with the view of achieving, among other things, greater workforce flexibility. The aim was overshadowed by a series of strikes in the French public sector.

As in Georgia, Iraq and the broader Middle East dominated much of the 2003 Evian agenda. This was widely expected, as half the G8 had opposed the war in Iraq. Despite the remote location, there were violent demonstrations.

Africa was also discussed in Kananaskis, Canada, in 2002, where the Africa Action Plan, a development package, was formulated. Critics argued the measures included too much advice and too little financial assistance.

The headline agreement to come out of the Kananaskis summit was a $20 billion deal aimed at preventing nuclear weapons, held by the former Soviet Union, falling into the hands of terrorists.

Apart from the massive upsurge in violence from anti-globalisation activists, the 2001 Genoa summit also included a pledge to combat poverty, especially in Africa.

It was here that the G8 Africa plan, which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown continue to pursue, was first launched.

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