Rich nations under pressure to honour G8 pledge to Africa by The Independent / The Guardian 4:28am 24th Apr, 2007   April 25, 2007    West’s Foot-Dragging over Aid to Africa called ‘Grotesque’, by Larry Elliott / Kate Connolly. (The Guardian/UK)    The west’s foot-dragging over aid pledges to Africa was described last night as “grotesque” and a threat to the lives of the world’s poor by the body set up by Tony Blair to monitor the results of Britain’s Gleneagles summit.    Almost two years after the G8 group of leading industrial nations promised to boost development assistance by $50bn a year by 2010, the Africa Progress Panel headed by the former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said rich countries were only 10% of the way to their target.    “If the efforts to double aid by 2010 are not increased soon it will be too late,” Mr Annan said as the APP presented its findings in Berlin to the prime minister and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will host this year’s G8 summit in early June.    Mr Annan said the commitment to doubling aid had fallen year on year since Gleneagles.    “In 2005 we did well, by 2006 we were sliding, and unless we now make about $5bn available a year we will not make that target,” he said.    Bob Geldof, who also sits on the APP, said the promises of “economic justice” made at Gleneagles, on which Mr Blair had staked his legacy as prime minister, were in danger of collapsing. This amounted to a “grotesque abrogation of responsibility”. The former rock star added: “No one wants to see the compact of Gleneagles destroyed. Economic justice is the most sacred promise you can make, because if you break it you kill people. We cannot be the instruments of death - we need to be the instruments of life”.    Mr Geldof singled out Germany and Italy for criticism, but Mr Blair said he was confident the international community’s will to act was still there.    “If we do not take a responsible and long-term view of Africa, and its need to develop and make progress, we will end up ultimately with our own self-interest back in countries like Germany and the UK being damaged as a result of the poverty, the conflict, the mass migration, the spread of terrorism and so on,” he said. “So I think there is a strong moral cause but I think it’s a cause closely allied to our own self-interest. We know that there is very much more that still needs to be done,” Mr Blair told a press conference.    He has successfully pressed Mrs Merkel to put Africa back at the top of the G8 agenda in Heiligendamm in June.    Britain, one of the few leading western countries on track to meet its Gleneagles commitments, believes that action so far falls significantly short of the increases pledged and is urging its partners to step up their efforts.    While hailing efforts to boost HIV/Aids treatment and the increased numbers of African children in school, Mr Blair said: “We know there’s more that needs to be done in terms of aid, the world trade talks, building up Africa’s capability, for example for conflict resolution and the peacekeeping force that it will require.    “We also know there are still far too many Africans who die when their death is preventable with our help.    The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reported earlier this month that once one-off debt relief packages for Iraq and Nigeria were taken into account, aid flows from the west fell for the first time in a decade in 2006.    Britain called last night for action from the World Bank to prevent so-called “vulture funds” from preying on some of the world’s poorest countries, which are struggling to provide basic healthcare and education. This followed an award of $15m yesterday in the high court against Zambia brought by a US fund that had bought the African country’s debt cheaply and enforced it through the courts.    22 April 2007    Rich nations under pressure to honour G8 pledge to Africa, by Paul Vallely. (The Independent)    One of the most powerful lobby groups ever assembled will gather in Berlin this week to press the German chancellor, Angela Merkel - the current chair of the rich nations club, the G8 - to ensure that it keeps the promise it made to double aid to the world"s poor.    The lobbyists are each the most respected figures in their field. At their head is the man who was until recently the world"s most senior diplomat, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations. At his side will be Robert Rubin, who heads the world"s largest company, the American banking giant Citigroup, and who was twice US Treasury Secretary in the Clinton era. Other members include the Live8 mastermind, Bob Geldof, and Graca Machel, the wife of Nelson Mandela.    The group, which goes under the unglamorous name of the Africa Progress Panel, is being funded by the world"s richest man, Bill Gates. It has been set up to police the promises made by the G8 at Gleneagles two years ago to double aid to Africa by 2010.    The latest aid figures show that most rich nations are going back on those promises to an alarming extent.    The new panel had its first meeting, behind closed doors, in Geneva last week. Its members included the world"s top anti-corruption campaigner, Peter Eigen, head of Transparency International, and Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for starting the Grameen Bank, which makes loans to the world"s poorest people. Tony Blair is expected to join the panel as soon as he stands down as Prime Minister.    Already there is much that ought to concern them. Gleneagles promised two main things. The first - writing off almost $40b (£20b) in debts - has been done, releasing large amounts of cash for African governments to spend on making health care and education better available. All the evidence is that such spending is, thanks to a closer scrutiny on African governments, being better targeted than ever before.    But the second promise - doubling aid to Africa by 2010 - is well behind target. Global aid actually fell 2.7 per cent last year, and is set to fall again this year. Aid to Africa increased by only 2 per cent, though that figure rises to 9 per cent if donations through institutions like the World Bank are included.    "The figures are scandalous," said Jamie Drummond, head of Geldof"s lobby group Data (Debt Aids Trade Africa). "This is insufficient progress on the G8 promises to end extreme poverty in Africa."    British aid is up - by 13.1 per cent - and so, to the surprise of many campaigners, is that of the US; the Bush administration has almost doubled the share of American GDP spent on aid over the past six years. But France"s aid is up only 1.4 per cent and Germany"s by a bare 0.9 per cent. Japan"s has fallen and Italy"s is down a massive 30 per cent.    One area for which the G8 have come up with extra cash is in the fight against Aids.    The number of Africans receiving anti-retroviral drugs has grown from only 50,000 to a million. But on this, and on issues such as getting more children into school, small successes need scaling up to meet the Gleneagles promises, as well as those made in 2000 in the Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving world poverty by 2015. July will mark the halfway point in the MDG process. The money for all that is simply not there.    April 2007    Christian Aid comment on 5 April Gleneagles event. (Christian Aid)    Two years on from the Make Poverty History rally in Edinburgh for the G8 Gleneagles meeting, millions of people still live in poverty.    "The efforts that Gordon Brown has put into the fight against global poverty are to be applauded, but, we need him to show real leadership both globally and in the UK in the struggle to cut carbon emissions and bring climate change under control," said Claire Shelley of Christian Aid Scotland. "If he doesn"t do that, all his other efforts will be wasted".    In 2005 the UK government made fighting poverty in Africa and climate change their top priorities for the G8.    Unfortunately despite their efforts what was agreed was a poor reflection of what was needed when compared to the scale of the problems and the campaigning by the people of Britain and around the world.    Two years later we find that:    * promises of more aid are slipping and aid still comes with damaging economic conditions.    * only 20 countries have received full debt relief, when even Gordon Brown acknowledges that at least 66 should get it.    * world trade talks are stagnating and the EU is pushing an even more aggressive agenda in new trade deals with former colonies    * dwarfing all of this the world has noticeably failed to act on climate change, which is now very clearly the biggest threat to development the world is facing.    The science on climate change is uncompromising and only by acting quickly and decisively will we prevent a terrible injustice being visited on poor people.    April 2007 (ActionAid)    A group of leading charities has come together to call for urgent action to turn the pledges made in 2005 into reality.    Charities and campaign groups in the UK will call on the Government to put pressure on the G8 summit to deliver on: debt cancellation and more and better aid; trade justice; healthcare, education, water and sanitation for all; firm plans to prevent catastrophic climate change and address its impacts.    Patrick Watt from ActionAid said: "The millions who got involved in the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005 won major commitments from the world"s richest countries, but now we need to see much more determined action to match those words. We’re looking for cast-iron guarantees of action at this year’s summit across aid, debt relief, world trade and climate change."    Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (the President of this year"s summit), must make the G8 summit a good one for the world"s poorest people. To answer the call for justice for millions around the world living in poverty.    Matt Phillips from Save the Children said: "Two years on from the Gleneagles summit 5,000 children die every day from drinking dirty water. More than five million people living with HIV/AIDS still do not have access to medicines. As the clock ticks, peoples lives are lost.    "At the same time we have seen that where progress has been made on the commitments made in 2005, this has made a real difference. For example as a result of debt relief measures agreed 4 million people in rural Zambia now have access to free healthcare."    The OECD said this week that across the G8 aid levels have fallen by almost 9%. However, the UK has bucked the trend and seen its overseas aid levels rise by 12.6%, something which campaigners attribute to the success of 2005"s Make Poverty History campaign.    "The UK government was presented with a huge public mandate to increase their overseas aid, and the initial signs are good,” said Patrick Watt from ActionAid. “The UK must continue to lead from the front. It must meet its own pledges in full and on time, in order to demonstrate leadership to the other G8 countries.    CAFOD"s Helen Wolfson said: "G8 countries, especially Germany - as this year"s G8 President - must deliver on the promises they made at Gleneagles in 2005. We are deeply concerned at the moment that some countries may fail to meet those commitments - the world can"t wait for action".
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