Suggested 2010 G8 Communique Language

ONE's priorities for the Muskoka G8 Summit are:

1)      Increased accountability of G8 nations to promises made on development

2)      Increased accountability of African governments and all development partners to the needs of African citizens

3)      Scaled-up efforts to improve maternal, newborn and child health

4)      G8 leadership toward a new strategy for African development to be agreed at the September 2010 MDG summit

1) Accountability of G8 nations to promises made on development

With only five years left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, we must refocus our efforts to support countries in achieving these targets. We will ensure that our development assistance is in line with the priorities of recipient countries and is consistent with the Paris and Accra principles of effectiveness and coherence. We will make information about our assistance transparent in accordance with the goals of the International Aid Transparency Initiative.

We  agree that future promises should be made in accordance with the TRACK charter for a good promise  that calls for all  future promises to  be: Transparent, Results-oriented, clear about the degree of Additionality, clear about the degree of Conditionality, and monitored by an independent mechanism to ensure the promises are being Kept (for more see www.one.org/track). We commit to apply these principles to our existing development promises before the UN Summit in September 2010. We urge the G20 group of nations and all OECD countries to adopt these TRACK principles and to institute an annual review of performance.

Prior to this Summit, we published an extensive accountability report that provided updates on the performance of individual G8 countries' delivery on their promises.  We will create an independent secretariat to ensure that this report is issued annually. 

2) Accountability of African governments and all development partners to the needs of African citizens

We support the call in the African Union's vision statement for ..."an Africa driven by its own citizens". We reaffirm our 2002 commitment at Monterrey when we declared that "good governance is essential for sustainable development" and agree to increase our efforts towards this end. To achieve this vision, we will:

i) Implement transparent aid and trade agreements that support and promote good governance;

ii) Promote measures that increase the responsiveness of governments to their citizens by strengthening checks and balances in government and civil society;

iii) Ensure that all donor resources for development are independently monitored and evaluated.  In order to better evaluate progress towards development goals, we will support an effort to gather improved statistics on poverty in all African nations. This is to be completed by the first meeting of the African Union in early 2011;

iv) Encourage resource-rich nations to sign up to the Natural Resource Charter and to rigorously implement the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI). The model of EITI should be expanded to other sectors that lack transparency and are prone to corruption;

v) Encourage all G20 and African countries to ratify, implement, and enforce the UN Convention Against Corruption and support the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) initiative. We also call on the Financial Action Task Force to report back on specific actions it has taken to help detect and deter corruption by prioritizing work to strengthen standards on customer due diligence, beneficial ownership and transparency.

3) Increased efforts to improve maternal, newborn and child health

i) We recognize that improving maternal, newborn and child health demands increased investment in both high-impact, measurable interventions and long-term investments in local capacity to strengthen health systems.  We agree to work towards universal access to skilled birth attendants with a G8 target of training one million new health care workers in countries with a high burden of maternal and child deaths; support comprehensive education campaigns about pregnancy to women of child bearing age; continue to work towards universal coverage of bed nets and access to anti-malarial drugs; continue to work towards universal access to HIV treatment, prevention and care; provide universal access for children to a package of critical vaccinations that includes pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines; and to achieve, by 2015, the elimination of mother to children transmission of HIV.

ii) We recognize the critical role that multilateral organizations play in improving maternal, newborn and child health, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank; we agree to fully resource these organizations and to work in partnership with them to support a single strategy in each country to improve maternal, newborn and child health. We agree to fund our proportionate share of the Global Fund's $17-20 billion needed by the Global Fund during the 2011-2013 3^rd annual replenishment cycle and the $4.3 billion needed by the GAVI Alliance from 2010-2015.

iii) We believe that these successful models could be even further utilized to meet the child and maternal health goals. During this replenishment year, we encourage the Global Fund to consider broadening its mandate to include explicit financing of interventions that support improved maternal, newborn and child health. If the board agrees to expand the mandate, we agree, along with other donors, to provide additional resources that support such an expansion.

iv) We agree to double the level of bilateral ODA directed to improve maternal, newborn and child health from approximately $4 billion in 2010 to at least $8 billion in 2013. We will  channel these new resources through the most effective avenues available -- whether bilateral initiatives and/or new multilateral approaches, such as an expanded Global Fund.

v) We commit to working with developing countries to devise technically sound national health plans through their internal processes and through mechanisms like the International Health Partnership (IHP).

vi) We will ensure that these promises are detailed by each country in a transparent, accountable manner in accordance with the TRACK charter for a good promise.

4) G8 leadership toward a new strategy for African development to be agreed at the September 2010 MDG summit

We reaffirm our commitment to achieving the MDGs by 2015. We recognize 2010 is a pivotal year to assess progress on the MDGs and set out a strategy to the 2015 deadline for achieving these goals. We will work to both strengthen our partnership with well governed countries and our support for the efforts of actors working in other countries to reduce poverty.  In all countries we will support efforts to improve the accountability and transparency of governments to their citizens. We agree to take a leadership role in finalising a new strategy for sustainable development in Africa by the UN MDG Summit in September, which will incorporate the following:

i) An approach to development assistance that empowers African nations and their citizens by supporting and rewarding accountable and transparent governance;

ii) Full implementation of the accountability strategy outlined above;

iii) Increased efforts to promote Africa as an investment destination. This will include support for regional integration through improved regional infrastructure, a vision promoted by the African Development Bank and others;

iv) A redoubling of efforts to finance the achievement of specific MDGs such as: accelerated implementation and expansion of the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative; strengthening and financing of the Education for All Fast Track Initiative;  full financing of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations, and other health financing mechanisms;

v) New innovative financing mechanisms to ensure that the additional burdens on poor countries caused by climate change are countered by additional financial support and to ensure that  the renewable energy potential of Africa is harnessed to tackle the regions energy poverty;

vi) Enhanced support for regional peacekeeping efforts, the African Standby Force and coastal security measures.