DATA Report 2008

In 2005, the G8 made a series of historic commitments to Africa, including a doubling of development assistance to the continent by 2010 and a collection of specific pledges such as achieving universal access to AIDS treatment and supporting universal primary education.

The DATA Report is ONE's annual assessment of the extent to which the G8 are following through on these promises. Using the most up-to-date figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the DATA Report monitors progress by individual countries and the G8 as a whole towards meeting their specific commitments.  

The 2008 DATA Report found the G8 to be falling further behind on their 2005 commitment to contribute an additional $21.8 billion in assistance to Africa by 2010. Final data shows that in 2007, the G8 were halfway to the 2010 deadline but had only delivered $3.16 billion, or 14.5%, of the $21.8 billion commitment. Wide variation exists amongst donors, both in terms of the ambition of the original commitments and the progress against those commitments to date. On the whole, the European G8 members made more ambitious commitments, but thus far have not delivered extensively. Meanwhile, Canada, Japan and the U.S. made relatively less ambitious commitments but are moderately closer to meeting them.

If the G8 continue at their current pace, they will not keep their promises to Africa. For three years, the G8 have delivered less than the total that would have been needed for a straight line trajectory to the 2010 target. This means getting to the goal in 2010 will require much larger annual increases between now and 2010.