(G)O, Canada!

Jun 29th, 2009 2:55 PM EST
By Nora Coghlan

According to this year’s DATA Report, while the G8 are collectively failing to follow through on their 2005 Gleneagles promises to Africa, three countries are successfully meeting or beating their targets. One of the surprising front-runners in this group is Canada. At Gleneagles, Canada pledged to double its development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa: $1.5 billion by the end of 2008. It has not only met this target, but exceeded it, directing $1.9 billion to Africa by the end of last year. This means that it has delivered 206% of increases promised by 2010.

Canada remains a strong supporter of basic education, health, and more recently agriculture and food security. Canada has also emerged as a new leader on the aid effectiveness front, promising to untie all development assistance by 2012–2013.

Canada should be applauded for meeting its commitment to Africa, particularly in a year where countries like Italy and France are threatening to drag down the entire G8’s efforts. Accountability is more important than ever in an increasingly unpredictable financial climate, which has left the world’s poorest countries struggling maintain recent gains in the reduction of poverty and disease. Canada should use its good performance as leverage at the upcoming G8 in Italy to push the group to develop a recovery plan for countries who are behind to get back on track towards Gleneagles.

As host of the G8 Summit in 2010, Canada must also look ahead to create bold, new aid, trade and investment commitments to Africa. Despite already meeting its target, Canada has yet to indicate any increased spending plans to Africa over the next few years. While the Canadian government has said that its new aid strategy—which focuses the majority of bilateral aid on 20 focus countries (seven of which are in Africa)—does not indicate a shift, it still hasn’t shared detailed plans to prove this. These plans should include a clear timetable for delivery and a roadmap for increasing development assistance to reach 0.7% of GNI within ten years.

Over the past few years, Canada has worked hard to strengthen the G8’s relationship with Africa. It was instrumental in launching the historic 2005 Gleneagles commitment, and in 2009, it hosted the Kananaksis summit (where the G8 announced its support for the newly-formed NEPAD). To build upon this leadership, Prime Minister Stephen Harper should announce that when Canada hosts the G8 Summit in 2010, Africa and the Millennium Development Goals will be at the heart of their agenda. What better way to demonstrate Canada’s clear commitment to Africa’s future.

-Nora Coghlan

Will France forge a new partnership with Africa?

Jun 18th, 2009 6:43 PM EST
By Oliver Buston

Last week ONE’s DATA report heavily criticised France for failing to keep its promises on the quantity of aid that is going to support economic development and poverty reduction in Africa. Since then there have been two interesting developments relating to the quality of French aid, which is of course just as important.

The first development was the French government’s decision to launch a new strategy to aid developing countries. The strategy will focus aid on 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. They will receive 60% of France’s total development aid with a focus on health, education, climate change, agriculture and economic growth. If the strategy is properly implemented it should make French aid more effective, more predictable and more transparent. It should also make it easier for French citizens to hold their government accountable to their aid promises, and it should help citizens in African countries hold their governments more accountable for how that aid is spent.

The second development was the death of Omar Bongo Ondimba, Africa’s longest-serving leader and the man at the heart of a big corruption case in France. In many people’s eyes Omar Bongo was synonymous with all the worst aspects of what is known as “francafrique”.

These two developments give President Sarkozy and his team an opportunity to forge a brand new path in terms of France’s relationship with Africa. France can now give up some of the bad old ways and start to focus its African policy on the real needs of African citizens and their efforts to achieve democracy, good governance, economic growth, and poverty reduction. What is now needed is real leadership from the French government to keep its promises by both increasing aid and spending it in a smarter and more accountable way as they have promised.

If you want to read more about this, see these two great articles:

IRIN news, 16 June

The Economist, 18 June

CNN at the DATA Report Launch

Jun 15th, 2009 2:09 PM EST
By Chris Scott

Yesterday, as you know, ONE launched the 2009 DATA Report in London and CNN was there to cover the event. They sat down with panelist Bill Gates to discuss the Report and the state of global development this year.

Check it out:

You can read more from CNN here.

-Chris Scott

Answer

Jun 11th, 2009 5:20 PM EST
By Weldon Kennedy

ONE members from all around the world submitted questions for the launch of ONE’s 2009 DATA Report today. These were voted on by members earlier this week to decide which would be posed to the panel this morning. The winning question came from ONE member Simon Sentamu in Tanzania who asked:

Why should we Africans expect Pres. Sarkorzy, Chancellor Merkel and PM Berlusconi to live up to their 2005 promises and Gleneagles commitments while many of our leaders are not living up to their promises to eliminate grand corruption nor are they meeting their commitments to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)?

And this morning in London, the DATA Report launch panel answered:

-Weldon Kennedy

DATA Report Launch Videos

Jun 11th, 2009 4:42 PM EST
By Virginia Simmons

Thanks to the handy work of our Weldon and Kimberly, we now have videos from this morning’s launch of the ONE DATA Report 2009 in London.

Here’s a 6 minute highlight reel of all of the speakers.

[Panelists: Bill Gates, co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof anti-poverty activist and ONE adviser, Dr. Francoise Ndayishimiye, Senior Gender Adviser, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Arunma Oteh, Vice President for Corporate Services, African Development Bank, Archbishop Desmund Tutu, ONE's International Patron and Jamie Drummond, ONE's Executive Director]

And below, a video of the whole event.

DATA Report Key Findings

Jun 11th, 2009 1:59 PM EST
By Chris Scott

In 2005 at the Gleneagles Summit, the G8 made a host of historic promises to Africa, including doubling development assistance by 2010, promoting increased trade and investment, cancelling debt, improving health, and achieving universal primary education by 2015.

Today in London, ONE released the 2009 DATA Report, its annual in-depth look at how the G8 are progressing towards these targets. This year’s report is divided into four parts: aid quality and quantity, trade and investment, debt cancellation and investing in people (a look at the progress made in the health, education, agriculture and water and sanitation sectors). What does this year’s report reveal? Here’s a look at a few key findings.

Development Assistance

• By 2008, the G8 had delivered only a third of their commitment—just $7 billion of the total $21.5 billion increases promised to Africa by 2010. Some countries fared better than others: the US, Canada and Japan are meeting or beating modest targets; Germany and the UK are striving to meet their more ambitious commitments. France’s delivery is disappointing, and Italy—the host of the upcoming G8 Summit—has utterly failed to make progress on its promised aid.
• Looking ahead to 2009, ONE estimates that the G8 will have delivered only a half of their commitment. 80% of the 2009 shortfall will be due to France and Italy. That means that in 2010, the G8 must deliver the entire other half to reach their target.
• In 2008, the G8 met in Accra to review progress on improving aid effectiveness. While the forum helped accelerate progress towards achieving better aid, more must be done to reach the 2010 goals.

Debt

• The steps taken by the G8 since 2005 have brought them close to fulfilling their commitments on debt. At the end of 2008, Africa had been relieved of $92.8 billion of its debt obligations.
• But the global financial crisis threatens to overturn these advances. Among the 20 African countries that reached ‘completion point’ in the debt cancellation process, 11 now face a risk of debt distress through reaccumulation of debt.

Trade

• The G8 are not living up to their promise to “make trade work for Africa.” Despite an increase in exports, Africa accounts for only 3.5% of global trade—the lowest share of any region in the world.
• Making trade work for Africa will require a combination of: increased access to developed country markets; reduced agricultural subsidies; improved aid for trade; stronger regional integration; and more policy space.

Investing in People: Health, Education, Agriculture and Water

• When the G8 made their 2005 commitment to double ODA to Africa by 2010, they also promised to make sure that this aid would meet specific development outcomes in health, education, water and agriculture.
• Progress has been made on some of these goals, including getting children into primary school, supporting AIDS treatment for those who need it, and distributing bed nets to protect mothers and children from malaria.
• Progress towards other outcomes has been rather slow, such as increasing access to improved drinking water and sanitation and increasing agricultural productivity. Greater details on all of these investments can be found in the full DATA Report.

The findings above are just a small sampling of the information you’ll find in the 2009 DATA Report. To view the full report online, please click here.

-Kara Arsenault

Watch the 2009 DATA Report kick-off event live in London

Jun 11th, 2009 9:30 AM EST
By Aaron Banks

The 2009 edition of the DATA Report, ONE’s annual assessment of the G8’s progress on their commitments to global development, is launching this morning in London at a special kick-off event featuring Bill Gates, co-Chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof, anti-poverty activist and ONE principal, Dr Francoise Ndayishimiye, of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria; Arunma Oteh, of the African Development Bank, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Visit the DATA Report website to watch the event live beginning at 10:30a.m. GMT.

-Aaron Banks

2009 DATA Report Ready to Launch Worldwide!

Jun 10th, 2009 5:35 PM EST
By Jessica Gomez-Duran

Each year, ONE publishes a DATA Report, an annual assessment of the extent to which the G8 are following through on their commitments to global development. Tomorrow we will be launching ONE’s 2009 DATA Report, with a special kick-off event in London.

We have an amazing panel to help launch this report: Bill Gates, co-Chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof, anti-poverty activist and ONE principal, Dr Francoise Ndayishimiye, of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria; Arunma Oteh, of the African Development Bank, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In Germany, we’re planning a press briefing with Tobias Kahler, Andreas Hueber (both ONE staff) and Elizabeth Missokia from HakiElimu in Tansania. Tobias will outline the 2009 DATA Report while Andreas will focus specifically on aid effectiveness. Ms Missokia will offer insight into how donors and partners cooperate in Tanzania to scale up education, and what the Tanzanian civil society is doing to make sure that all funds by donors and government are used in the most effective way possible.

In Rome, we will be briefing journalists at around the same time as London, and telling the story of how this year’s G8 hosts are faring worst on living up to their aid commitments. We will also be highlighting that as the only existing member of the G8 who signed the G8 communiqué in 2005 in Gleneagles, Berlusconi has a personal obligation, as well as a national one to deliver on his promises.

In Washington DC, ONE will be meeting with policy makers throughout Washington to inform them of the findings in the Report.

In the coming days and weeks we’ll have much more on the 2009 DATA Report including an interactive website, a blog series detailing numerous features in the Report, and much more. So be sure to check back often!

-Jessica Gomez-Duran