Hokkaido G8
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
Today, the Financial Times published an article based on a draft G8 communiqué obtained by the newspaper . The draft communiqué for the Hokkaido Summit mentions the development assistance goals for Africa made in Gleneagles in 2005, but drops mention of the specific target, approximately $25 billion. The communiqué recommits the G8 to working towards the goal of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, but drops mention of doing so by the original promised date of 2010.
ONE just published its 2008 DATA Report that monitors G8 commitments to Africa from Gleneagles. One of our headline findings is that the G8 have only delivered 14% of their promised development assistance increases. The G8 committed to $21.8 billion (the $25b was an approximation that was made before clarifications by the countries), but now, half way to the 2010 target date, they have only collectively delivered $3 billion of this promise. On AIDS: despite great progress (nearly 30% of Africans in need of HIV/AIDS treatment now are receiving them), there are still nearly 5 million people on the continent that are in need of treatment in order to stay alive.
No wonder then that the G8 wants to hide from their earlier promises. This is hard work. Their slow delivery until now has made the road to delivering the promises a bit steeper, but these are the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world’s history. The G8 as a whole is spending 0.07% of their GNI on development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa. This is NOT a big budget item. If the G8 want to honor their commitment to Africa, they can. The road to doing so is shown here in this.
We can’t hide the numbers of people waiting for life-saving HIV medications and we can’t hide the millions of children waiting for the opportunity to go to school. The G8 shouldn’t hide the commitments they made in 2005 and recommitted to in 2006 in Russia and in 2007 in Germany.
The G8 will be tackling a host of issues critical to all of us: a global financial crisis, climate change, the food crisis, an economic downturn, and the role the G8 will play in the growth of Africa. On all these issues, the G8’s ability to keep their promises will determine whether they will be a relevant and trustworthy body in the 21st century.
The FT reported that what they obtained is a draft communiqué. Rather than backtracking, the G8 must at the very least include a recommitment to their promises to Africa. What they should be doing is taking a step forward by setting annual timetables for meeting their overall development assistance commitments and specifying a timetable for meeting their health commitments from the Heiligendamm Summit. One week from today, the G8 Summit starts in Japan. We will find out shortly if the G8 will stand by their word.
-Josh Lozman
Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who is chairing this year’s G8 meeting, wrote a letter to the heads of the G8 countries as well as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick stating that the soaring world food prices would be part of this year’s agenda.
You can read an outline of the letter.
It was copied to the World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran, Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General Jacques Diouf, International Fund for Agricultural Development President Lennart Bage, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union Alpha Oumar Konare.
In the letter, Prime Minister Fukuda states:
“Soaring food prices are posing imminent and serious global challenges. Threat of hunger and malnutrition is increasing, and the high prices have also brought about social unrest.
As the Chair of the G8, I firmly believe that this issue must be a subject of our in-depth discussions with a strong sense of urgency at the Hokkaido Toyako Summit in July. I intend to consult with my G8 colleagues, so that the G8 could collectively send a robust message.
You can read the full outline of the letter here, and more about the world crisis here.
-Virginia Simmons
