Once protesters cut in on the industrialized world’s gigantic photo-op that is the G-8 summit, there seemed like even less purpose to it than before. Nations go, however, as they have gone this week, because it would be bigger news not to go, and there is the outside chance that something could be accomplished. Thanks to the political skills of the summit host, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the public has had two neatly packaged global problems to think about as the summit takes place; one with a real possibility.

Increased aid to Africa – geography teachers try to get students to distinguish among African nations; politicians confound them – and climate change are large enough to warrant serious study and complicated enough to excuse definitive action in the short term. The climate change idea has value only if the nations agree on specific targets for carbon dioxide emissions – the rest is mostly talk – and targets have so far been elusive. But aid to Africa shows more promise.

Mr. Blair proposes a doubling of aid by 2010 to $50 billion and a further increase to 0.7 percent of national incomes by 2015. President Bush went for the doubling of aid – some detractors said he was in part restoring some of the money he had already cut – but not the 0.7 percent, reportedly leaving the rest of the G-8 (Britain, Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and Russia) about $6 billion short of the goal. More money presents more opportunities, but how well the donated money is spent could matter more.

For instance, President Bush has a new nation-building agency in the State Department’s Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization and a performance-guided aid agency in his Millennium Challenge Corp., which dispenses money to countries that are taking steps toward democracy. If reconstruction and stabilization lead to democratic governments that focus on the welfare of their people, seed money will attract investments faster than annual summits could. Then there are lowered trade barriers, which could do more to support good government choices in Africa than another round of charity.

Of course wealthy nations should help poor ones with direct aid, especially if the aid can be gotten efficiently to their people, but the point is not only to look at the amount of money but what might be done with it. President Bush, for instance, has pledged to increase aid to reduce malaria deaths, which kills 1 million people, mostly children, a year worldwide. He has made the prevention and treatment of AIDS in Africa a major part of his foreign policy and has proposed increasing support for promoting the education of girls there. His administration, through NATO, has supported African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.

These investments in Africa should bring about significant changes during the next few years, changes measured in lives saved and hope nurtured. Now, if there were only a little more action on climate change.

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The tragedy of the London subway attacks Thursday, perhaps by a group calling itself “The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe,” demonstrates continued vulnerability to terrorist attacks but properly did not stop the summit: bombs never fed the hungry, cured disease or solved environmental problems.

If anything, the violence makes the challenges at the summit more pressing and the noise and photo-ops that dominate these events even less important.