Last week, ONE launched the DATA Report in France. I posted a few blogs entries covering the overall findings, the launch itself and a more detailed look at the United States’ performance.

But, we launched the report in France for a few reasons. First, the 4 EU G8 (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) make up more than 75% of the promised increases in aid from the G8. France takes over the presidency of the EU on July 1 and alone makes up 23% of the promised increases. And, though France has been a strong supporter of the Global Fund, they have only delivered 6.7% of their promised increases so far. In short, France made a huge promise, but delivery has been weak. This story is true across the EU G8.

France cut aid to Africa in 2007. Wrong direction. France has committed to increase aid to Africa by $4.986 billion by 2010. Of that promised increase, they have only delivered $334 million. In order to get back on a linear track towards their 2010 target, France would have to increase aid to Africa by over $1.5 billion dollars next year. Though a sizeable amount, this number is so big because France has been so slow in increasing aid so far. France is really important for Africa, both historically and now. As France becomes the President of the EU and decides its internal budget, President Sarkozy and the French people need to demonstrate that they are going to meet their commitment Africa.

Germany was last year’s host of the G8 and promised to get on track to meet their commitments after a very slow start. Chancellor Merkel and Germany increased aid to Africa by $311 million last year. Though not enough to get back on track, it was a big step in the right direction. Next year, we expect Germany to increase aid by $634 million – again moving closer to being on track. Germany hosted a strong Global Fund replenishment conference in Berlin late last year and has made strong progress, but there is still a long way to go towards accomplishing Germany’s promised increases of $3.969 billion by 2010.

Italy is a tricky story. Italy’s aid to Africa has actually decreased below the level it was at in 2004. But, Italy posted the largest increase in 2007: $417 million. As Prime Minister Berlusconi returns to office this year, it is our hope that he will push Italy to make this large increase the start of sustained progress rather than just a one year anomaly.

All of these commitments were started in 2005 at the Gleneagles Summit hosted by the United Kingdom. Though Tony Blair was then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has always been a strong supporter of Africa and global development generally. We were surprised to see that UK aid to Africa this year only increased by $48 million. Despite this small increase, the UK has accomplished more of its promised increases than any other country – 26%, and looking at the UK’s three year budget, called the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), ONE is fairly sure that the UK will meet their commitment to increase aid to Africa by $3.908 billion over 2004 levels. Our colleagues and fellow advocates in the UK will hold the government accountable to these commitments until they are met.

Following through on the G8 promises to Africa will be a test of the EU G8’s ability to keep to their word as we continue this transition to a globalized business and political world. It is essential both for Africa’s development and for the G8’s ability to act as global leaders that they keep these commitments.

The next two blog posts on the DATA Report will be about Japan, this year’s G8 host, and Canada.

-Josh Lozman

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under UK, Gleneagles Summit, Germany, G8, DATA Report, France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.