QUESTION MARKS HANG OVER G8 AFRICA AID PLEDGE
06.5.07 - Leído 43 veces. Enviar esta notaLucia Kubosova
With divisions over climate change, Kosovo and US plans to build anti-missile defence system in Europe clouding the mood before the top G8 summit, the development aid pledge looks also increasingly uncertain
BERLIN, Germany; 5 junio 2007.- Diplomats representing the eight most industrialised countries (Germany, the US, UK, Italy, France, Canada, Japan, plus Russia) gathering in Heiligendamm on Wednesday (6 June) - are to hold last minute talks on which specific aid commitments should be included in the G8 summit conclusions, the Financial Times reports.
The key targets - to boost development aid by €37 billion by 2010 and cancel debt to the poorest countries - were agreed two years ago in Gleneagles, Scotland, under the UK presidency and with a high political push by Tony Blair.
While debt was indeed cancelled, with 18 countries benefiting from the move, only the UK and the US are more or less on the path towards meeting the aid pledge.
Some other countries, however, are against even repeating the 2005 promises in this year’s G8 conclusions.
Campaigners for the world’s poorest regions have condemned this foot dragging.
“If I sign a contract in my business life and don’t fulfil it, I would be sued. I could go to jail. Do these leaders live outside the norms of human behaviour?” the world-known activist Bob Geldof told the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
“There is a great crisis of credibility,” he added.
German chancellor Angela Merkel, who is hosting the summit in the Baltic Sea resort, is hoping to achieve a concrete result on the aid package. It set an example just days before the summit by announcing that Germany would increase its aid by €3 billion between 2008 and 2011.
But according to Oxfam, the British charity, Berlin’s pledge is not enough to fulfil its Gleneagles promise.
“Based on figures from the OECD, Oxfam has calculated that the German government would need to find approximately €1.5 billion each year between now and 2010 to meet this target - twice what was announced.”
In a report published on Monday (4 June), Oxfam said that if present trends continue, the G8 will miss its aid goal by $30 billion.
(EUobserver)
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