G20

Mixed Bag for Mums and Babies

Jun 27th, 2010 10:07 PM UTC
By Kimberly Hunter

Every year, approximately 350,000 mothers die from complications during child birth and 8.8 million children die before their fifth birthday. We are desperately off track to achieving the Millennium Development Goals on child and maternal health and expectations were high for the G8 summit to deliver results.

Yesterday, the G8 announced the Muskoka Initiative on maternal, newborn, and child health. Although Canada deserves some credit for putting maternal and child health in the developing world on the G8 agenda this weekend, world leaders have not done enough to truly turn the tide on this vital issue.

At ONE, we campaigned for a robust maternal and child health initiative at this year’s G8 summit and for it to be accompanied by a concrete accountability framework. We also delivered a petition signed by more than 60,000 of you to world leaders to push them to deliver for the world’s more vulnerable – mothers and children.

While we were disappointed in the total G8 pledge of $5 billion to the Maternal and Child Health Initiative, our efforts elevated this issue, raised awareness, and will raise the bar for world leaders to address this and the other Millennium Development Goals at the UN Summit in September.

Sheila Nix on CBC’s “The National”

Jun 27th, 2010 11:35 AM UTC
By Kimberly Hunter

Sheila Nix, our U.S. Executive Director, was featured on CBC’s The National as part of segment on maternal and child health. Sheila talked about her trip to Ghana and Sierra Leone, and how simple interventions can prevent the mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDs giving children a whole new lease on life.

You can watch the clip here.

ONE Welcomed to G8/G20 by Mayor of Toronto

Jun 24th, 2010 8:00 PM UTC
By Kimberly Hunter

The ONE team has arrived in Canada and is already hard at work raising awareness in the fight against extreme poverty with Toronto’s Mayor David Miller. We’re in town for the G8 and G20 Summits where maternal and child health and accountability are on the agenda. For several months, ONE has been actively engaging Canadian leadership to push for a robust maternal and child health initiative that includes accountability measures to make sure that country commitments are kept. We’re also calling for the G8 and G20 to forge a new partnership with Africa based on mutual accountability, good governance, trade and investment – a good start would be giving African countries more formal representation at the G20 to ensure that the poorest countries have a voice at global summits.

We’re currently in the Alternative Media Center which separates the NGO community and civil society from the media. Despite the logistical hurdles, we managed to meet Toronto’s Mayor David Miller, talk about ONE and our issues and give him a t-shirt to sport around town.

Today, leaders are arriving from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and, of course, Canada for the start of the G8 Summit tomorrow in Muskoka.

We’ll be checking in with updates and any news as it breaks – and we’ll be keeping the pressure on global leaders to agree to commitments that make a difference to the world’s poorest!

$1 billion for mothers and children?

Jun 2nd, 2010 3:51 PM UTC
By Nora Coghlan

The Canadian Press reported over the weekend that Canada is planning to pledge $1 billion towards an initiative on maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) at this month’s G8 summit.

Heather Scoffield of CP writes: “The federal government is telling other G8 countries that Canada is willing to put about $1-billion toward maternal and child health – as long as other countries ante up too. The Canadian cash will likely target poor countries with the worst records of maternal and child mortality and malnutrition.”

Although the initiative has been in discussion since Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in January that he would champion maternal and child health at the summit, with less than a month until the G8 summit few details have been outlined. To ensure that the initiative delivers results for women and children around the world, Canada and the rest of the G8 should take this opportunity to outline an action plan for maternal, newborn and child health with clear objectives and how the G8 will ensure that promises made at the summit are kept in the months and years ahead.

Last month, ONE released its own set of recommendations for the G8, including a call for a robust, results-based initiative to improve maternal, newborn and child health in the world poorest countries.

For maximum impact, new resources for maternal and child health should be channeled through effective bilateral and multilateral mechanisms (especially the Global Fund and the Global Alliance for Vaccines Initiative) and delivered in an integrated, coordinated manner that supports national health plans and works towards ambitious targets such as the recruitment of 3.5 million health care workers, universal access to basic immunization (including new vaccines for rotavirus and pneumococcal disease), and the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 2015.

In addition, any new initiatives by the G8 and G20 must incorporate accountability safeguards to ensure that new commitments are kept. As a champion of accountability within the G8, Canada has the opportunity to demonstrate how an MNCH initiative will pilot a new era of accountability by the G8 and the G20. The TRACK principles, a guide developed by ONE and its partners call for commitments to development to be Transparent, Results-oriented, clear about the degree of Additionality and Conditionality, and monitored by an independent mechanism to ensure the promises are being Kept.

If the $1 billion figure is accurate, in the coming days Canada should clarify how it meets the TRACK principles – including where the money will be spent, the timeframe it will be delivered, interim targets and the outputs it intends to achieve – and encourage other donors to do the same to ensure that any new initiative includes both ambition and accountability.

African Economic Outlook

May 26th, 2010 4:16 PM UTC
By Joseph Powell

The global financial crisis slashed economic growth in Africa from an average of 6% in 2006-2008 to 2.5% in 2009. High levels of population growth meant per capita economic growth in 2009 was at a standstill across the continent. These are the stark findings of the African Economic Outlook report for 2010, a joint production of the African Development Bank, OECD and UN Economic Commission for Africa released on Monday.

They do, however, predict a return to healthier growth of 4.5% in 2010 and 5.2% in 2011, although there will be marked regional variations with Southern Africa particularly lagging behind. Henri-Bernard Solignac-Lecomte, Head of the Europe, Africa and Middle East Desk at the OECD Development Centre said:

“The good news is that the continent has proved resilient to the crisis. The bad news is that, despite rebounding growth next year, the downturn could make it more difficult for some African countries to meet the development goal of halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015.”

The report adds pressure to the G20 and International Monetary Fund to take into account the damage the recession has caused in Africa when they finalise their recommendations for the financial sector to make a “fair and substantial contribution” to the cost of the crisis. A significant part of any resources generated by new levies on the banks should therefore be clearly earmarked for African development, to ensure that progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is not halted by a problem not of Africa’s making.

In total the Overseas Development Institute estimates Africa lost out on $130billion due to falls in trade, foreign direct investment, remittances and bank lending. For example, in 2009 Africa’s export volumes declined by 2.5%, and falls in commodity prices hit the mining sector.

Queen’s Speech outlines new UK Government Priorities

May 25th, 2010 5:38 PM UTC
By Alexander Woollcombe

ONE welcomes the Government’s “commitment to spending 0.7% of national income as development aid from 2013”. However, this commitment needs to be translated into legislation, as was pledged in both the coalition agreement and pre-election manifestos.

“The UK is a world leader in international development and this leadership will be needed more than ever in the coming month. The manifesto pledge to introduce legislation committing the UK Government to spend “in the first session of the new parliament” should be kept and it’s disappointing that this wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. Prime Minister Cameron is about to walk onto the global stage,” said ONE’s Oliver Buston. ”The G8 and G20 summits in Canada in June, and the MDG review summit in New York in September will be key moments to reinvigorate and redefine our relationship with the world’s poorest countries, pushing forward a bold new strategy to end extreme poverty in our time.”

Our Recommendations for the G8, G20 Summits

May 12th, 2010 2:08 PM UTC
By Chris Scott

As you’re probably aware, next month world leaders making up the G8 and G20 will convene in Muskoka and Toronto, Canada respectively. These Summits occur in a pivotal year: the final deadline for the historic 2005 G8 commitments, and five years left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

In advance of these Summits, ONE has released our list of recommendations for the Summits. We’ve also published our suggested language for the 2010 G8 communique. (This is essentially the commitments the G8 will agree to after the Summit.)

In the run-up to the Summits in June, we’ll have more pre-game analysis and commentary right here on the ONE Blog. But the aforementioned two documents are your best sources for a detailed outline of what we’ll be advocating for in Canada on behalf of the world’s poor. Stay tuned!

Bono and Bob Geldof to guest-edit The Globe and Mail

May 5th, 2010 7:32 PM UTC
By Chris Scott

Cool news. Next Monday, 10 May, ONE co-founder Bono and our great supporter Bob Geldof will edit the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail as part of the run-up to Canada’s hosting the G8 and G20 global summits in June, where Africa will be on the agenda. It’s an amazing opportunity for ONE and a great chance to get the word out about the progress being made on the continent today, and about the strategic importance of Africa, not just to the 1 billion people living there, but to the rest of the world as well.

ONE is working closely with Bob and Bono on this project, as we have in the past when they edited other leading publications around the world, including Asahi Shimbun in Japan, The Independent in the UK, Bild in Germany, and La Stampa in Italy.

The special edition will feature content and commentary from African political leaders, business owners and grassroots activists; it will also include contributions from other well-known international political leaders and advocates.

“I’m a huge fan of great journalism – I can’t wait to show up for work at The Globe. Our aim in this special edition is to crack down on a few stereotypes and showcase the opportunities surrounding the African continent, not just the problems,” said Bono in The Globe and Mail press release issued last night announcing the project.

“The world will be coming to and looking at Canada this June. The older and the emerging economies will be once again be struggling to learn the new 21st century dance of cooperation and possibly even compromise, and this time under Canada’s leadership. The Globe and Mail, one of the world’s great papers of record, has, in a mad rush of blood to the head, agreed to let two Irish pop-singers edit their august journal for one special day, one special edition. It will be dedicated to that huge, emerging resource continent of Africa and the global necessity of coming to terms with its opportunities and obstacles. I’ve gone from being an old editor of the Vancouver Georgia Straight to the new editor of The Globe and Mail and it’s only taken 36 years! Now that’s a career trajectory,” said Geldof in the same release.

The Globe and Mail is inviting readers to send in their video questions for Bono and Geldof. Video questions should be sent via their website by 6 May. Select questions will then be chosen, and answered by the guest-editors online during the month of May.

So send your questions in!!

We’ll have more on this exciting development when the special edition is published on Monday.

IMF proposals should take account of Africa’s losses

Apr 26th, 2010 2:48 PM UTC
By Joseph Powell

This year’s IMF spring meetings ended inconclusively at the weekend, with most major decisions deferred until the June G20 summit in Canada. The IMF has been tasked with coming up with recommendations for how the financial sector could make a fair and substantial contribution towards paying for the effects of the economic crisis. However, while good ideas were raised at the weekend on repaying the costs of rich country bailout, there was a disappointing silence on support for African countries.

This is despite the IMF’s own analysis finding that “the global financial crisis greatly compounds the policy challenges confronting the region as it strives to consolidate its economic gains and meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”.

ONE’s European Director Oliver Buston responded by highlighting the need for the IMF to take account of Africa in their recommendations:

“Countries in Africa that did nothing to cause the crisis are estimated to have lost $130billion due to falls in trade, FDI, remittances and bank lending. The IMF should make clear in their final report to the G20 in June that some of the revenue raised from their proposal on financial activities will be directed to Africa. Africa should not be forgotten when it comes to securing a global recovery.”

ONE will use the next few weeks before the G20 in Toronto to press Africa’s case for inclusion in the IMF’s final report and help ensure that hard won progress on reducing extreme poverty is not undermined.

Canada Coalition Pulls Back a Chair

Mar 11th, 2010 6:44 PM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

It appears that Canada is quite enjoying its time in the spotlight these days. As if hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver (and becoming gold medalists in hockey) wasn’t enough, Canada is also the official head of the Group of 20 nations this year, and will therefore play host to the world’s most influential leaders this summer at the G8 and G20 Summits in and around Toronto. And with the global event fast approaching, Canadian advocacy organizations and activists alike are beginning to outline exactly what they hope their country will accomplish in its new role as a legitimate player on the international stage.

In the first of what will most likely be many events leading up to the summer summit, anti-poverty organization, Make Poverty History, along with a coalition of development NGO’s, labor, student and faith-based organization, launched a campaign this week called AT THE TABLE, which aims to pressure the Canadian government to increase its commitment to foreign aid. The global campaign brings together more than 60 partner organizations, including Oxfam, UNICEF and Amnesty International, that are all dedicated to ensuring that the voices of the world’s poorest nations are “at the table” of this year’s G8 and G20 summits. The overarching goal of the campaign calls for leaders to take bold measures to alleviate extreme poverty, address climate change and economic reform through increased foreign aid and a commitment to take action.

Launched in conjunction with International Women’s Day on March 8, the campaign is extremely timely given that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recently released budget effectively freezes Canada’s foreign aid spending at 2010-2011 levels – this is despite a promise to make improving the health of women and children in the world’s poorest regions a major focus of this year’s G20 summit on June 26 and 27. The Table coalition believes that Prime Minister Harper is out of sync with other world leaders on the issues of foreign aid, climate change and global economic recovery after last week’s budget announcement flat lined Canada’s contributions until 2014.

Though the G8 and G20 are the first global events on the campaign’s radar, AT THE TABLE plans to continue mobilizing citizens to “take their place” at a number of other global events, including the G20 summit in South Korea and the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit in September.

To learn more about the campaign, visit their website at http://atthetable2010.org/