Photo credit: Wikimedia

Weeks of advocacy work, thousands of petition signatures, an influx to Cannes of the most important heads of state and activists from around the world, press conferences, sleepless nights… and all this against the backdrop of the Greek tragedy: this was this year’s G20 summit. But in the end, what came out of it? Was it another talk shop or will it spell major changes for the poorest in the world?

As so often, the answer is neither white nor black. We can record some achievements, but on some issues we had hoped for more. Let’s have a closer look on the issues ONE campaigned for:

We will keep on reminding the G20 that many of the solutions already exist and that this report, as well as the one prepared by Bill Gates, should not be mothballed. The next G20 summit is just around the corner: Rendezvous in Los Cabos, Mexico, in June!

The G20 has made infrastructure one of its priorities this year, for good reasons: Recent estimates by the African Development Bank (AfDB) put the annual infrastructure deficit in sub-Saharan Africa at more than $45 billion. A lack of decent infrastructure on the continent means poor people too often pay heavily in time and money to access essential services such as health care and education –- holding up the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In sub-Saharan Africa, 70 percent of the population has no access to electricity, and the majority of the rural population has no reliable roads to access the nearest markets or health care. In some countries, this lack of infrastructure also reduces economic output by 40 percent.

According to work by Afrobarometer, African citizens and businesses repeatedly place access to reliable infrastructure near the top of their development wish lists. It was for this reason that ONE made a submission to the Panel and the G20. Our key asks were:

• An increase in private and public sector infrastructure investment to address Africa’s infrastructure deficit, especially in sectors such as rural roads, which are essential for pro-poor economic growth
• The use of transparent and pro-poor, sustainable, investment criteria such as the UN Ruggie Principles, the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative principles and the OECD principles on infrastructure for poverty reduction.

The Panel’s report, which was chaired by former Ivorian Minister and current head of Prudential Insurance Tidjane Thiam, says that investing in infrastructure should be part of a global growth and development strategy. They propose concrete recommendations to the G20 on how public funds can be used as a catalyst to raise even greater amounts of private investment for infrastructure in Africa — for example, through the Sokoni initiative, which should hopefully allow for greater availability of future public funds to be used for specific pro-poor infrastructure projects. In addition, even though the mandate of the High Level Panel Report was not to look at pro-poor infrastructure or safeguards, it is encouraging that the report repeatedly stresses the importance of transparency and building local capacity. The G20 should now take forward the recommendations of the panel, and in addition, address the need for investment safeguards such as environmental and social impact assessments to ensure infrastructure projects do not undermine but rather increase poverty reduction.

In response to the report ONE’s Europe Director Adrian Lovett said:

“In the middle of a growth and debt crisis, what the G20 needs is concrete ideas to kick-start the global economy. Tidjane Thiam’s report on infrastructure shows how Africa can be part of the solution in driving global growth while addressing some of the constraints to poverty reduction on the continent. Africa is the new frontier for investment and Thiam has shown how public money can be used to leverage significant extra sums from the private sector to address Africa’s Infrastructure deficit.”

“For many people in Africa a lack of infrastructure is not an inconvenience, it is a daily hardship that means reduced access to healthcare, education and jobs. Thiam’s report should kick-start a G20 focus on infrastructure that results in concrete results by the time of the Mexico summit.”

ONE co-founder Bono said:

I heard what President Calderon said in France this afternoon about the priorities for his G20 presidency in 2012. It’s great to hear that hunger and food security will be high on the agenda. And I’m glad he wants to retain the services of Bill Gates for a little longer too. Bill has started a quiet revolution with his smart proposals for financing development.

Speaking from Cannes, Adrian Lovett, ONE’s Europe Director, reacted to the outcome of the G20 Summit:

For 75 crucial minutes, the G20 hauled themselves from beneath the wreckage of the eurozone crisis and focused on bold ideas for the fight against poverty. Those 75 minutes, used for talks about innovative finance for development, may have saved this summit. Now we need to ensure that this moment of promise in Cannes becomes a legacy of action in Los Cabos when the G20 meets under Mexican leadership there next year.

“The G20 failed to recognise that investing in Africa is a big part of the solution to the global economic crisis. But this was the first G20 summit where leaders did at least recognise their promises to deliver aid. Progress was also made on agriculture, with commitments to limit harmful speculation and investing more in agricultural productivity. These commitments address specific calls from 400,000 ONE members, whose voices have been heard in Cannes.

Michael Elliott, President and CEO of ONE, said:

The good news from Cannes is that development is now firmly embedded in the G20′s agenda – largely thanks to the report on financing 21st century development which President Sarkozy commissioned from Bill Gates, and the welcome that report received. Bill Gates demonstrated to the G20 that the fight against poverty is a fight we can win. When so much progress has been made in saving and improving lives, now would be the worst possible time to retreat. The report’s recommendations represent a bold challenge to world leaders and a shot in the arm for campaigners worldwide. We look forward to the G20 carrying forward its work on development in 2012 under the leadership of President Calderón of Mexico.

However both government and private investors often find it difficult to find African infrastructure projects to invest in. This isn’t because of a lack of projects, but rather a lack of information being made available to investors. As a result, potential investors find it very hard, time consuming, and at times, expensive to find information on projects and other potential investors. This impedes investment even though new projects often yield attractive rates of return. The result of this is that African people continue to suffer from this lack of infrastructure.

Today however at the G20 Summit in France, world leads took steps to address this problem by endorsing the establishment of the Sokoni African Infrastructure Marketplace. This African Development Bank and the Zanbato Group Sokoni proposal (“Sokoni” is Swahili for “marketplace”) should help overcome many of the challenges investors face by creating a single platform for information on a large number of African infrastructure initiatives. Governments and investors will be able to come to find transparent information and link up efficiently with each other. Using ICT and technology, Sokoni will help enhance efficiency, transparency, and connectivity in the market and help to mobilize increased resources from Africa and abroad for badly needed infrastructure projects.

ONE welcomes this initiative and the support of the G20 world leaders for it. You can find out more about Sonoki from its website http://www.sokoni.com/

In his report, he makes the case for why we must continue investing in the livelihoods of poor people—and he suggests some innovative ways to do it.

In the report, Bill Gates says:

“Leadership from the G20 is critically important right now. The global economic situation is as fragile as it has been at any time in the past 50 years. As leaders of the G20, you face a difficult challenge: How do you resolve the immediate crisis while continuing to make smart investments in long-term growth and improved living conditions?

In the past 50 years, a billion people were saved from starvation by advances in agriculture. Health has improved in stunning ways, thanks to innovations like vaccines. In 1960, 20 million children under the age of 5 died. In 2010, fewer than 8 million children under 5 died. The world population more than doubled during this time, which means the rate of death has been cut by over 80 percent. Aid generosity has played an important role in these successes

Despite the current economic crisis, I am optimistic that we can build on the generosity and innovations that worked in the past. The group of countries able to contribute resources to development is larger than ever before. The number of people who can spur innovations is much greater than in the past. For these reasons, I am convinced we can create a new era in development.”

You can download a full copy of the report 21st Century Development: Innovation with impact from the Gates Foundation website.

As somebody once said about these big summits: if you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu. And Greece has been breakfast, lunch and dinner here at the G20 so far. Its bones have been well and truly picked over. There can hardly be a morsel left to digest. President Sarkozy had aimed to put global development at the heart of the G20 agenda but Greece has been the only topic of conversation in Cannes. I’ve never seen a global summit so blown off course as this one.

My first G8 summit was in Birmingham in 1998. I didn’t get inside that time – I was one of 70,000 people who formed a human chain around the summit to call on leaders to cancel third world debt. As I recall, something happened to divert the world’s attention then. I think it was the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury went to the FA Cup Final rather than join the protest.

Over the years, these summits have often been buffeted by events. Sometimes by tragedy: in 2005, the Gleneagles G8 was temporarily suspended while Tony Blair flew to London to deal with the 7 July terror attacks. I remember how the oxygen seemed to be sucked out of the place in an instant. But that horror somehow seemed to focus leaders’ minds back on the business in hand: they restarted the meeting and finished negotiations on the Gleneagles Declaration, promising $50 billion more in aid for the poorest countries.

There is a slim chance that this Cannes summit also could be brought back on track. The report presented to the G20 this afternoon by Bill Gates puts Africa centre stage. Gates recognises that Africa can be part of the solution to the global economic crisis. He says “development isn’t just good for people in poor countries; it’s good for all of us”. With 500 million people of working age, and six of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world, the G20 will be missing a trick if it fails to recognise Africa as a new source of consumer demand and a solution for weak global growth.

With a few notable exceptions, world leaders have been quietly backing away from their promises to the world’s poorest and hoping nobody would notice. The Gates report shows how financing for the fight against poverty can be found, leaving leaders with no excuse not to act. A coordinated global agreement on investment, aid and innovative taxes could raise enough revenue to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and avoid catastrophic consequences of the eurozone crises – not only for Europe and the international finance system, but also for developing countries who are the innocent victims of this crisis.

The G20 has never met this close to Africa. The continent is barely five hundred miles from where the leaders are sitting. Yet the interests of Africa feel a world away. If he can go the extra mile in the next few hours, President Sarkozy might just ensure this G20 is remembered for more than the Greek crisis. It’s a long shot – but don’t bet against it just yet.

So far, France, which chairs the Summit this year, has called for a common and sustainable dynamic for development. However, tensions about the Euro crisis may overshadow action against global poverty at this year’s conference.

“Development will be a second major challenge for the G20. I want our dual presidency (G8 and G20) to make Africa its priority”

Nicolas Sarkozy said at his press conference in January 2011.

However following recent events in Greece, this morning after a bilateral meeting with Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama said that their most important task for the next two days is to solve the Eurozone crisis.

Does it mean that development will be, once again, the “poor kid” of the summit?

Our team is on the ground in Cannes and will regularly update us on the summit. Stay tuned, we will update this blog throughout the conference. We’ve also put together a list of people tweeting updates which you can follow for minute by minute reports.

With the exceptional support of the City of Paris, the latest ONE PSA, “The F-Word: Famine is the real obscenity” and animated video, “A Future Without Famine” were projected onto the walls of City Hall in both French and English.

The names of the more than 400, 000 ONE members who have signed the petition calling on G20 leaders to break the cycle of famine were also projected onto the building. This exceptional mobilization is living proof that ONE members’ voices can help break the cycle of famine for good.

As Mayor Bertrand Delanoë said, “Today we have reached 7 billion worldwide. The challenges of population growth are numerous, but food is particularly urgent. A few days before the G20, I seize on this occasion to call for global mobilization against hunger…”

At ONE, we hope that the voices of all our members will be heard, and that strong commitments will be taken and actions implemented by the G20 leaders.

While underlining the severity of the current economic crisis, Bono made the case that even in these difficult times, investing in effective programs that are saving millions of lives is not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do in an increasingly globalized world.

He highlighted the importance of the French government continuing its support for effective programs that are fighting extreme poverty in Africa and crises such as the current famine in Somalia, saying, “It is not normal to have a famine …We should be able to prevent a drought from systematically becoming a famine.”

The French have been leaders in the fight against HIV/AIDS as seen by their continued support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and they are in a unique position to forge stronger links with Africa in the future as a trading and economic partner. And aid is making a difference: 4 million Africans have benefited from AIDS treatment since 2002.

When asked about his own political influence with heads of state during an interview with the French TV show “Le Grand Journal” on Canal+, Bono stressed that much of the power comes from his audience, many of whom are voting age, including U2 fans, and ONE campaigners. “It’s not me the politicians fear, it’s the audience,” he said, urging individuals to mobilize and keep pressure on their governments to ensure that the world’s poorest are not forgotten, even in these tough times.

At the upcoming G20 in Cannes, ONE will be calling upon global leaders to support innovative finance mechanisms for development, to prevent future food crises by smart investments in agriculture and to take concrete actions in order to improve infrastructure in Africa. Please add your voice to our petition and ensure that world leaders break the cycle of famine.

Photo courtesy of GirlsandWomen.com.

The second edition of the G(irls)20 Summit opened today in Paris, and will run until October 21. Because girls and women are half of humanity and that they are always the first affected by the different global challenges, this international summit is dedicated to women and to solutions they can provide to major global economic issues. The G(irls)20 is an integral part of the international campaign “3.3 Billion Ways,” based on the assumption that the planet has 3.3 billion women and therefore, there are 3.3 billion ways to change the world!

The G(irls)20 brings together female citizens, aged 18 to 20, from each G20 country and a representative of the African Union, bringing the number of delegates to 21. Delegates discuss, debate and design innovative solutions to global economic challenges. Representatives of civil society, the private sector and foundations are attending this 100 percent female summit and will share and discuss their ideas with each other for better integration of girls and women in the global economy.

According to Belinda Stronach, founder of the Belinda Stronach Foundation and summit organizer, “The G(irls)20 Summit is a unique platform for the girls to express their innovative ideas and to bring them to the G20 leaders.”

At ONE, we fully support this initiative and look forward to its conclusions!

For more information, please visit: www.girlsandwomen.com