One week from today, world leaders will gather in the lakeside town of Toyako, Hokkaido in northern Japan for the 2008 G8 Summit. We like to talk about “big moments” in the advocacy world and this is certainly one of them. The 2008 G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit will bring the world’s wealthiest nations together during a year that marks the halfway point to both the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the G8 Gleneagles promises to Africa. Earlier this month, we launched the 2008 edition of the DATA Report, which shows quite plainly that the G8 are dangerously behind on these landmark commitments.

But the cold hard facts of the DATA Report also tell another, more positive story – that even the modest increases in aid from the G8 are turning into inspiring successes. 29 million more African kids are in primary school and 2 million Africans are receiving lifesaving AIDS treatment, to name just two.

That’s why ONE and other partners are so determined to keep G8 leaders accountable to their commitments: we know our aid dollars are working.

In 2008, we’ve been hard at work in the US, Japan and other G8 countries to lay the groundwork for a summit that gets the G8 back on track. Our job as advocates is admittedly not an easy one this year. Soaring energy costs and a weak global economy have put the squeeze on national budgets.

But 2008 is also a year that’s seen millions of poor people priced out of the market for food, threatening to erase many of the recent gains in poverty reduction. Given all the global attention on the food crisis, we think there’s a real chance the G8 will announce a plan to reverse decades of underinvestment in the agriculture sector and maybe even do something visionary, such as investing in an agricultural revolution in Africa.

We’ll also be watching closely to see if the G8 provide an accountable timetable for delivering on their $60b health financing commitment from 2007 and announce new support for health workers.

We’ll be tracking all the important issues and events here on the ONE Blog. And our small team in Hokkaido, led by our friend Bob Geldof, will be sharing their thoughts as events unfold. Stay with us.

David Lane, President and CEO of the ONE Campaign

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 10:34 am and is filed under 2008 G8 Japan Series, G8, Japan. 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.