2009 G8 L’Aquila: Recovering legitimacy on tackling global issues

The 2009 G8 Summit is a year before the Gleneagles commitments to the poorest are to be delivered.  The G8 countries collectively need to deliver an average of an additional $7.2 billion of effective development assistance each year in 2009 and 2010, but G8 President Italy and France are falling dangerously behind on their commitments. As the global economic crisis and the threat of climate change compound extreme poverty, it is increasingly clear that even if the Gleneagles commitments are met, they are insufficient in financing Africa's development needs to reach the Millennium Development Goals.  The G8 must urgently take the following actions:

Agriculture:

• Provide $5 billion extra in 2010 on medium and long-term agricultural initiatives in Africa that support technically sound, accountable country-led plans while making provisions for a scale-up to $10 billion annually, working with African-led initiatives such as NEPAD's CAADP on an effective financing mechanism;

• Provide adequate medium term assistance, such as seeds and fertilizers, and extend small scale credit facilities to prevent a descent into hunger and poverty;

• Increase investment in agricultural infrastructure including electrification, irrigation systems, and transportation infrastructure. Market distorting subsidies and import duties and quotas on goods from African countries should be eliminated;

• Provide more funding for research and training to address the needs of smallholder farmer populations, like that conducted through AGRA and CGIAR;

• Increase technical assistance for smallholders so they can better access credit and so that rural land tenure systems can be strengthened.

Health: 

• Fully fund the Global Fund through a robust full replenishment in 2010 to fill the funding shortfall of $6 billion;

• Fully fund the Global Malaria Action Plan for reducing the burden of malaria by 50% by 2010 in order to eliminate malaria deaths by 2015 by providing $4.8 billion in 2010;

• Expand upon the Hokkaidocommitmentsand put firm funding targets and a concrete timeline for a multilateral Global Health Care Partnership, which would develop health systems and prioritize funding for the training and retention of the health workforce to preserve the successes of previous G8 investments;

• Scale up funding to better address historically under-funded areas, including neglected tropical diseases; basic maternal and child health needs, such as access to antenatal care and skilled care at birth and proven cost-effective interventions such as immunizations for diseases such as pneumonia, rotavirus and other diarrhoeal diseases; and innovative financing mechanisms such as Advance Market Commitments which can front-load funding for these neglected areas.

• Implement the recommendations of the High Level Task Force on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems to generate additional revenue for health system strengthening in developing countries so that funds are generated and disbursed by the 2010 G8 Summit.

 Accountability:

• Agree a Gleneagles recovery plan for all those governments who are falling short of their individual ODA commitments setting out clear timetables;

• Strengthen the value of existing and future G8 commitments by ensuring that all plans have credible timetables attached and governments set up regular payments to meet the pledges they make within the G8 sphere;

• Commitment from the Canadian Government to put Africa and its achievement of the MDGs at the heart of Canada's 2010 G8 agenda.

Innovative financing:

• Call for the IMF board of directors to go beyond the G20's implicit agreement to use around $1.3 billion of the IMF gold sales profits to leverage $6 billion of IMF lending to developing countries. Request that the IMF instead finds $5 billion from gold and other sources and uses this to leverage extra resources which are highly concessional and non-debt creating. Support a reallocation of the SDRs to African countries with small quotas that are currently in need of increased assets.

• Mobilise funding for climate change adaptation in developing countries ahead of Copenhagen through equitable and predictable mechanisms;

• Establishment of an incentive structure for international mitigation efforts in Africa, such as the "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation" (REDD) scheme to reward and strengthen African efforts to avoid deforestation;

• Agreement on a "green energy deal" with Africa, which 1) ensures technology transfers to Africa; 2) guarantees full admissibility of African carbon offsets against the reduction targets in the industrialized countries; and 3) reforms the "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM) to incentivise investment in Africa.

Following up on Accra and Hokkaido

All G8 countries must publish their operational plans which detail how they will implement the Accra Agenda for Action, and should reach out to emerging donors such as China to ensure they work consistently with these agreements on aid effectiveness. The G8 must also support African efforts to strengthen governance and fight corruption, such as the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

Continued support for Education for All is essential from the G8, who should maintain its support for countries with endorsed national education plans and begin to explore new opportunities to expand upon the successes of the FTI through a Global Fund for Education. Any new education initiative should maintain the "virtual fund" foundation of the FTI by coordinating donor support for national education plans through multiple disbursement channels. There are 22 FTI countries that currently face a funding shortfall of approximately $593 million to implement their plans, a gap that is expected to grow to $1.2 billion by 2010 as more countries are endorsed.

The G8 should also champion a new, comprehensive trade package that focuses on the unique challenges of Africa, and tackle issues such as greater market access for Africa, reduction of agricultural subsidies, and aid for trade to build Africa's trade capacity.  

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