Alexander Woollcombe from the ONE UK office reports on a significant development:

Good news but there’s more to do

ONE volunteer Jennifer and staffer Tamar at the door of 10 Downing Street with the petition.

These are stormy times in Westminster – but the commitment to help those who most need it remains. And as the UK general election next year approaches it is more important than ever that our politicians understand they are being watched, and need to keep their promises.

Last week we asked ONE supporters to sign up to our petition to “prioritise legislation that makes the UK’s commitment of 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) as development assistance by 2013 legally binding”.

Yesterday ONE supporters Tamar, Jennifer and I delivered our petition to a friendly policeman who opened the black door of Gordon Brown’s house at 10 Downing Street. He promised to pass it on to the Prime Minister “at once”, which was nice of him.

Then the Queen, in her speech to open the new parliamentary session, announced, “draft legislation” to do exactly what we asked. So we won!

It’s a technical thing to ask for, but aid to developing countries is more useful if those receiving it know it is coming and can plan accordingly. It’s also a brave thing for the British Government to announce when the country is still in the grips of recession.

The UK first promised to spend 0.7% GNI on aid nearly 40 years ago. But it hasn’t ever happened. Now all the main political parties have committed to do it by 2013. Gordon Brown announced in September he would propose legislation on this, but it wasn’t a certainty that this promise would make it into the Queen’s Speech.

We didn’t get everything that we wanted however; the Queen announced “draft legislation”, meaning it is very unlikely to become law before the general election, while we want this to happen as soon as possible. But with the help of ONE supporters, and everyone else who cares about Africa and development, we’ll keep the pressure on the Government. There’s a lot of work to do to make aid better but every step in the right direction is a step worth noting. Thanks to everyone who signed the petition.

As Bono said today “the proposal to make the 0.7% pledge legally binding is not just a great announcement, it is transformative of real lives, by a government that has led the world in keeping its promises to the world’s poorest people. The next step is making sure this becomes law as soon as possible, in 2010”.

Last week we wrote about ONE’s involvement with the UK’s Labour Party Conference. Some commenters naturally asked about ONE’s involvement withe the Conservative Party Conference. Today Jessica Gomez-Duran from ONE’s UK office reports back:

The ‘Africa Dream Team’ sticker album that was produced for the Conservative Party Conference

Well, now that we’re rested post party conference season, I thought it was about time we filled you in on last week’s Conservative Party Conference in Manchester and the successful reception we hosted there.

As with the reception we held at the Labour Party conference the week before, ONE’s Oliver Buston said a few words of welcome and showed a video message from Archbishop Desmond Tutu in which he praised the progress that has been achieved so far in Africa. We were then privileged to have two footballers at our event – South African footballer Quinton Fortune and World Cup winner Marcel Desailly. They spoke about the importance of education and the 1GOAL campaign, which aims to ensure that the lasting legacy of next year’s football World Cup is that every child can be learning in school by 2015. The Shadow International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell MP, also spoke outlining policies contained in the Conservative Green Paper. People seemed really interested in ONE and our issues and there was a positive atmosphere in the room.

As a way of linking our reception events with the World Cup, we proposed a ‘2010 Africa Dream Team’ of MPs. So, for the party conferences, we created a set of 10 football stickers to collect and the opportunity to ‘join the team’ as the 11th player. Everyone was given a blank sticker album and, just like being back in the school playground, a flurry of swapsies was necessary to harvest the complete 10. The stickers even featured in The Sun, the Telegraph and the Guardian newspapers here.

At the receptions, people could join in and become the goalkeeper of the Africa Dream Team by having their face photographed, speedily photoshopped onto a football player’s body, and then printed out onto their very own sticker. It was hard work but worth it as people seemed to really get a kick out of them!

All in all the receptions were great successes. But in the coming weeks and months we will want to hear much more detail about what all the parties are committing to in their manifestos. Stay tuned…

-Jessica Gomez-Duran

The sticker album produced for the Labour Party Conference

David Cole from ONE’s UK office writes about the country’s party conferences and the launch of their ONE Vote campaign (very similar to what we did in the US around the 2008 presidential election. The launch was also a chance to celebrate 1GOAL, which you can read more about here.

Last week ONE was at the Labour Party conference, where we held an event to launch our ONE Vote campaign as well as celebrating 1GOAL and the fact that the football World Cup will be held in Africa for the first time ever next year.

We were lucky to be joined by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who spoke about the issues. Two footballers also spoke, South African captain Aaron Mokoena and John Utaka, who plays for Nigeria and Portsmouth. They were followed by Glenys Kinnock, Minister for Europe, and Douglas Alexander, the Minister for International Development.

The ONE team is now in Manchester for the Conservative Party Conference, which started earlier this week, and we’re getting ready to host a reception this evening. We’ll be blogging more about the event soon so please stay tuned.

-David Cole

Jessica Gomez-Duran from ONE’s UK office checks in with this exciting development from the Labour Party Conference in Brighton:

Yesterday was a pretty incredible day. And no it wasn’t because the sun was actually shining in the UK (although that is pretty incredible). The Labour Party Conference is happening in Brighton this week and yesterday the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his big 59 minute speech to Labour supporters and the UK population more generally.

During his speech, Gordon Brown announced that the UK’s commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on development assistance will become law under forthcoming legislation.

As the Prime Minister stated, “And let me say what was once an aspiration – 0.7% of national income spent on international development aid, has become with Labour a promise, and will in future become a law. We will pass legislation that the British government is obliged to raise spending on aid to the poorest countries to 0.7% of our national income. Others may break their promises to the poorest, with Labour Britain never will.”

This is a significant step and it will contribute hugely towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. We welcome this great news here at ONE but we will of course be working to ensure that money to help Africa adapt to climate change will be above and beyond the 0.7 per cent and not included within it, as well as making sure that the aid is spent effectively.

You can read the full transcript of his speech here.

-Jessica Gomez-Duran

Recently, during the first ever World Trade Week in the UK, the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), launched the Food Retail Industry Challenge Fund (FRICH), an initiative designed to get more African products into UK markets. FRICH, co-funded by the UK Government and various UK retailers, offers subsidies to the private sector in the UK to develop business models that benefit African farmers by integrating them into the food supply chain that puts goods on UK shelves.

The challenge fund issues grants for specific projects taken on by UK retailers that develop methods to increase demand for food products produced in Africa. These projects must involve UK imports of food products from Africa and, to receive funding, grantees must match or exceed the value of the grant with their own investment. They must also demonstrate that their projects will benefit the market for African food exports, either through commercial promotion or with added income and employment for African farmers.

Trade is an essential tool for economic development and often relies on access to wealthy, developed-country markets, such as the UK. Accessing these markets is difficult for developing countries for a variety of reasons, including lack of capacity and marketing knowledge. FRICH aims to cultivate partnerships between the public and private sectors to overcome these barriers.

Almost 75% of all UK consumers want to use their shopping to contribute to poverty-reduction, according to DFID, yet only 3% of total household food spending is actually used to buy products manufactured in developing countries. FRICH aims to bridge this gap and to encourage UK businesses to take risks to develop new strategies that benefit African producers. Commercial operators with ideas that might have been seen previously as too risky to undertake can now apply for funding from FRICH. Adopting innovations, such as new technologies, links with suppliers in unexplored country markets, new crops and products, alternative distribution channels, and creative marketing, can help otherwise constrained businesses to develop and broaden partnerships with African producers.

The first round of FRICH funding has just been granted to six companies:

• Blue Skies: launching premium-quality fruit juices from Ghana.
• Waitrose LEAF: developing greener farming systems for African growers to produce environmentally-sustainable fruit and vegetables.
• The Co-Operative Group and Finlays Beverages: launching tea from cooperatives set up as a result of a partnership between Kenyan farmers and UK manufacturers in Kenya, as well as focusing on diversifying crops to reduce dependence on tea production.
• Sainsbury’s: launching, developing, and promoting coffees from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Betty’s and Taylors of Harrogate: upgrading quality and ethical practices of tea producers in Rwanda
• Cafédirect: launching a new range of teas and cocoa from Kenya, Rwanda, Sao Tome, Uganda, and Tanzania.

At the launch of FRICH, Minister for Trade and Development Gareth Thomas explained that, “Seven out of ten Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and the ability to trade with a large UK retailer will make a big difference to farmers across the continent.” The FRICH initiative highlights the importance of integrating African products into global markets and making Africa a viable partner in world-wide trade.

-Pooja Gupta

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