Recommendations for the G8 and G20 Summits

In June, the G8 and G20 will meet in Canada in the midst of a pivotal year for the global development agenda. Not only does 2010 mark the final deadline for the historic 2005 G8 commitments, it also leaves just five years to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In September, the G8 and G20 will join other world leaders in New York for a high-level summit at the United Nations, where they will review progress towards the MDGs. There they must adopt a new strategy centered more around accountability, transparency and poverty-reducing economic growth to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.

• Adopt governance based enhanced partnership strategies with African and other developing countries. Where governance indicators are strong - offer enhanced partnership with all the development tools (debt cancellation, aid, trade and investment) to accelerate progress towards the MDGs; where governance indicators are weaker - work to strengthen governance through targeting institutions, statistics, revenue and public expenditure management systems, legislatures, checks and balances such as free media and citizens transparency and accountability watchdog groups, while continuing support for vulnerable communities through non government groups.
• Support regional economic growth strategies which also leverage contributions from the BRICs, through enhanced support for the African Development Bank, regional strategies such as the African Action Plan, and also support efforts to raise awareness of Africa as an excellent destination for FDI.
• Adopt transparency initiatives to combat stolen assets, particularly in global extractive industries, banking and the construction sector through the EITI, StAR and CoST.
• Renew commitment towards the off-track health MDGs through mechanisms such as GAVI, GFATM and IHP; with a particular focus on Maternal Newborn and Child Health.
• Accelerate progress towards MDG1 through support for the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative, including CAADP; accelerate progress towards MDG 2 through the EFA FTI.
• Ensure finance for climate is additional to development finance through exploring and implementing additional innovative financing mechanisms.
• Ensure all old promises by development partners are kept and those who fail to keep them are held clearly accountable; and ensure future promises in 2010 and beyond meet the TRACK principles for a good promise to ensure they are more easily monitored and kept going forward.

The MDG Summit offers a unique opportunity to recommit to global efforts to end extreme poverty and develop new partnerships to really turn those commitments into action. At last September's UN summit, President Obama committed the United States to "support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year's summit with a global plan to make them a reality," and also to "set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time."  Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, the current Chair of the European Union, is working to produce agreed European priorities ahead of the summit. African institutions such as the African Development Bank and the African Union are working together to formulate their priorities to input into the process and the Canadian government has made accountability to past commitments a key tenet of its approach to chairing the 2010 G8 and G20 summits.

The world has changed dramatically since the MDGs were launched in 2000. A new partnership must reflect the altered global landscape, including the emergence of the G20 and the political and economic power of the BRICs, ongoing global negotiations on climate change and new opportunities to leverage development resources through innovative mechanisms. More importantly, a new action plan must reflect lessons learned since 2000 in terms of what has worked and what has not. Lasting results have been achieved where there has been a strong, mutually-reinforcing partnership between African governments, donor countries and civil society. In these instances, African governments have demonstrated a commitment to poverty reduction as well as improving governance and transparency, while donors have responded with resources and policies that are flexible, predictable and supportive of national priorities. Civil society has also been empowered to track resource flows and monitor programs to ensure accountability for results. These new partnerships should take a holistic approach to development that ensures accountability by all parties (developing country and donor governments, civil society and new development actors) and promotes the involvement and empowerment of civil society.

The G8 and G20 summits in June offer an opportunity for countries to endorse this vision and take initial steps to institutionalize a new partnership framework, as well as follow-up on key development-related commitments from previous summits. Ideally, by the end of September, donor countries and recipient nations would enter into a new framework to guide progress on development through to 2015 and beyond. At the G8 and G20 in June, leaders should focus on the following objectives:

Strategies based on governance and country ownership:  

Partnerships between donors and developing countries should reflect the reality that there is no "one-size-fits-all" strategy for development. Donors should use local governance, transparency and commitment to development as key indicators to distinguish between different types of partnership with African countries. A growing number of African nations, for example, have demonstrated their own commitment to poverty reduction by making budgets publicly available, committing a certain percentage of budgets to development outcomes, taking steps to reduce barriers to trade with neighboring countries, reducing corruption and engaging their civil societies. It is with these countries that the most robust partnerships for development are possible, and that should be reflected in the parameters for partnership outlined with donors. In these countries, donors should commit to employing a wide range of tools to foster poverty reduction and economic growth: donors should support country development priorities and poverty alleviation plans, set MDG-related outcome goals to achieve in partnership, provide 100% duty-free quota-free market access to LDCs, and find new ways to encourage investment. In countries where governance is weak or in fragile post-conflict states, a different type of partnership is required. Country needs must remain the focus, but supporting partners should utilize alternative channels (such as NGOs, multilateral mechanisms and the private sector) as opposed to country systems. In fragile states, more attention will need to be focused on peace-building efforts and rebuilding basic institutions.

It is critical that the type of relationship and the activities undertaken is driven by the countries themselves - both in terms of the identification of priorities on behalf of their people and in terms of the leadership role that the country takes in driving implementation. In better governed countries, the country should completely drive the compact development. In less well governed countries, or states with limited capacity, development partners may need to work more through non-government groups rather than government channels, but here also efforts should be made towards long-term graduation to more government-led approaches.

In addition to the revised country approach, supporting regional integration in Africa is also an essential component of economic growth and enterprise development. For example, investment in and coordinated donor policies are needed to develop regional infrastructure to enable countries to trade more with each other and the rest of the world. The trade policy environment also needs to improve. A conclusion to the Doha Development agenda would reduce tariffs and subsidies and give a welcome boost to both African and developed world economies recovering from the financial crisis.

Investing in better governance and accountability in all countries

Compacts should be structured in a way that reinforces the country's governance capacity so that compact implementation will be driven through country leadership. For their part, OECD nations and emerging powers such as the BRICs should adopt transparency legislation which decrease the opportunity for the international extractive industries and banking sectors to engage in bribery or corruption in less developed nations. The Stolen Assets Recovery program (StAR), and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) should be adopted and robustly implemented by all development partners. Measurable indicators must also be set in order to assess achievement of intended outcomes and the degree of accountability reached.

Harnessing a broader set of policy tools for development

Achieving the MDGs and reducing poverty in the long-term will require much more than just increasing the quantity and quality of aid: trade, investment, climate change policies, domestic resource mobilization and innovative finance mechanisms must all be enhanced, so that development financing is sustainable over the long term. Innovative finance mechanisms will also be needed to ensure adequate resources over the long term.

Individual compacts between countries should also complement a regional approach to support African economic growth and enterprise. For example, especially in the absence of a robust, development oriented Doha deal, G8 and G20 countries should look at improving and harmonizing their preference schemes for the poorest countries, particularly in Africa. This could include improved product coverage, larger tariff preferences, simple and common operational rules (such as rules of origin) and increased aid to support supply side capacity-building, including assistance towards African-led regional initiatives to improve regional infrastructure.

Strengthen accountability of the G8/G20 process

There have been a series of commitments to development in the past decade - some have been met and many have not. Accountability was a key theme in the 2009 G8 Summit in L'Aquila and was tabled for follow up in the 2010 Summit. The accountability matrix that was adopted by the G8 in L'Aquila and extended to the G20 should be expanded to include information that details progress towards existing commitments. At the 2010 G8 and G20 Summits, the final matrix should be publicized, and commitments that are off-track should be clarified with renewed efforts to deliver.

To give teeth to the concept of accountability and provide a framework for new commitments in 2010, G8 and G20 countries should establish a "charter of good promises" based on the TRACK principles:

T: Is it transparent? Every numerical commitment should come with - or be swiftly followed by - a clear presentation which shows: over how many years the commitment is for; a clear deadline; which budget line item the commitment is coming from; what the initial baseline is; and how the budget line item will change in future years.  All this information should be available and accessible, ideally in machine readable formats, on websites and in line with the International Aid Transparency Initiative format standards.

A transparent commitment makes the flows predictable from the point of view of the recipient country, enabling them to plan properly for future flows.

R: Is it results-oriented? Financial promises should link expenditure to real-world outcomes.  In the context of official development assistance these outcomes should be set by the recipient countries.

A: Is it additional? Perhaps the most difficult aspect of promise making, and one which makes it vulnerable to abuse, is judging whether or not any of the money promised is new and additional. For example, spending may be 'additional to previous levels', 'additional to promised increases above current levels that were already previously planned', or 'additional for the issue in question but at the expense of other objectives within the overall budget'. Overall, every promise that claims to be 'additional' must answer the question 'additional to what?'

C: Is it conditional? Often increases in resources are conditional upon changes in policy, both from the government and other agencies who are programming the resources, and above all from the recipient developing country implementing partner. Some conditionalities are onerous and much research has shown that conditions that impose policy choices on the recipient tend to be counterproductive. Others are important and necessary (i.e. the need for fiscal transparency and good audits and monitoring of projects). In either case, however, it is important for the conditionalities to be clear and openly presented.

K: How will we know it's been kept? As part of any major promise a mechanism should be identified, preferably an independent mechanism, to measure and monitor progress through the lifecycle of the promise to help ensure the promise is kept. Key moments should be identified, such as the September 2010 MDG Review Summit, where public interim progress reports can be delivered.  This mechanism should build on and support domestic accountability systems in the recipient countries.

Donors should be required to publish all future commitments to development in line with the above principles and provide regular updates on their implementation. Such an approach is especially relevant in the midst of ongoing global negotiations to address climate change and meet the L'Aquila promises. As global leaders work to mobilize much-needed resources to help developing countries adapt to climate change, they should also ensure that public finance contributions will be additional to existing ODA pledges from developed countries. Innovative financing mechanisms (including a contribution from national domestic emission auctioning schemes, those being considered by the High Level Panel, and levies on financial sector activities) should be explored to close the funding gap.

Bolster existing efforts towards specific MDGs

While the above investments will ensure that a new framework prioritizes long-term sustainability and accountability, it is imperative that momentum is not lost on efforts to achieve specific MDGs. Targeting MDGs can help to galvanize public support and create political will around change. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already identified some sector-specific initiatives for the G8 this year, and there are also items to follow-up on from previous summits. These initiatives should embody the principles outlined above to ensure that they are not only sustainable and effective, but that they complement and strengthen more holistic approaches to development that are underway. They must also be financed by steadily improving quality of aid and also quantity of aid.

Addressing maternal, newborn and child health

Canadian Prime Minister Harper has committed to champion an initiative on maternal and child health at the 2010 G8, a welcome announcement given that the MDGs on both maternal and child health are some of the farthest from reach. Any new initiative should include both key interventions along the continuum of care for mothers and children (such as antenatal care, vaccinations and access to clean water and sanitation) as well investments in local capacity to strengthen the underlying health systems (with support for healthcare workers, infrastructure and supplies).

In the absence of one global mechanism designed specifically to support efforts for MDGs 4 and 5 to reduce child and maternal mortality, additional resources should be targeted through a variety of proven, effective streams, including particular multilateral channels. The Global Fund and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), for example, are two critical mechanisms for improving the health of women and children around the world that are both entering replenishment cycles in 2010. The Global Fund will need $17-$20 million gap to maintain support for successful programs and meet demand for new ones. GAVI, on the other hand, will need an additional $400 million annually over the next three years to purchase new vaccines for pneumococcal disease and rotavirus, the two leading disease killers of children worldwide.

Donor support for MNCH also needs to be delivered in an effective, coordinated manner that supports country priorities and strengthens broader health outcomes. National health sector plans need to be strengthened and donor support coordinated through mechanisms like the International Health Partnership. It is also critical that the G8 develop an accountability framework to accompany any new initiative on MNCH. In line with the principles outlined above, an MNCH initiative should include a set of indicators to measure progress against long-term outcomes, annual interim financing targets that lead up to a concrete overall financial target and clear articulations of the resources being contributed by each partner.

Fulfill the L'Aquila commitment on food security

In 2009, donors committed $20 billion (later revised to $22 billion) to the L'Aquila Global Food Security Initiative. The G8 and G20 have yet to fully clarify the details of their financial commitments and outline how they will implement the qualitative principles on adopting a comprehensive approach, promoting country-led strategies, strengthening strategic coordination, leveraging benefits from other donors and delivering on a sustained accountable commitment.  They should also address the needs of smallholder farmers, the position of women farmers, and the impact of climate change on agriculture - all of which are essential to improving agricultural productivity. In Africa, country-led plans must be supportive of the CAADP process.

The G8 and G20 should also take the opportunity in June to look beyond the L'Aquila commitment for a longer-term framework to link with African plans for a sustainable agricultural development.

Support the 1 Goal Campaign with a comprehensive commitment for global education

The 1 Goal Campaign around the World Cup in South Africa will serve as a critical vehicle to mobilize popular support for education around the world. The G8 should use this momentum to reinvigorate their commitments to global education by working with developing countries to launch a comprehensive package of support to address the remaining obstacles to universal primary education. Special attention should be paid to reaching marginalized children (such as girls and children living in rural areas and fragile states) and improving quality through both traditional and innovative models. New financing should also be long-term and flexible so it can be used to support recurrent costs such as teachers, whose salaries make up 80% of education budgets in developing countries.

The G8 should also strengthen support for education plans in developing countries through the reform and renewal of the Fast Track Initiative. In 2010, the FTI will be undergoing a wide range of necessary reforms, including greater independence and strengthened capacity for the secretariat, more representation and participation by developing countries at the global and local level, improved monitoring and evaluation and an expanded focus on fragile states. The quick implementation of these reforms and others are critical to ensuring that FTI is equipped to help countries leverage new resources and implement the policy changes needed to reach UPE by 2015. It is imperative that the G8 and other donors not only support the reform agenda, but also fulfill their responsibility within the partnership by taking on a leadership role in the implementation of reforms and the future of FTI.  Donors should also ensure that, contingent on a package of reforms, FTI has the funding necessary to fulfill its mission, especially through the replenishment of its now single multilateral fund, which is seeking $1.2 billion for the next 18 months.