Malcolm Fleming: G8 leaders must keep their promises on aid

Published on Wednesday 8 July 2009 21:15

FOUR years ago at Gleneagles, as the G8 leaders announced their plan to tackle global poverty, Bob Geldof welcomed the move, giving the G8 "ten out of ten on aid".

While not everyone agreed with his assessment, there was no doubt that the promises made at Gleneagles were a step forward, with a pledge to spend $50 billion (31bn) in aid by 2010.

Fast-forward four years, with one year left to that self-imposed 2010 deadline, and the G8 is far from meeting its own target and keeping its promises to the world's poorest and most vulnerable; indeed, the OECD estimates it may fall a mammoth $23bn short.

This comes just at the time when the global economic recession is plunging millions more into poverty, making aid funding more essential than ever. Italy, the chair of this year's summit, is the biggest promise-breaker. Furthermore, the iconic 39-year old UN target of 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to be spent on aid has still not been met by any G8 member. Not one of the world's most powerful countries has ever met that target, although smaller nations such as Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands have not only reached it but exceeded it.

It is easy to forget, as we go about our lives in Scotland, with our attention caught by job cuts, swine flu, MPs' expenses and Andy Murray's Wimbledon exploits, just how different life is for millions of the world's poorest and just how deep and widespread the poverty crisis is. Here the recession is costing jobs, and for the poorest in this country it is particularly challenging. But in the developing world the poverty crisis costs lives every second of every day – yet the political will has still to arrive to take remedial action.

The statistics are shocking when you think about what they mean for millions of our fellow global citizens: one in six of the world's population lives in hunger, 1.4 billion live in extreme poverty and more than ten million infants will die because of poverty this year. Access to basic services that we take for granted (and moan about!), such as health care and education, remains out of reach for millions.

As the G8 leaders meet, there are concerns that aid is not as high up the political agenda as it was four years ago. The danger is that the economic crisis is used as an excuse by the leaders of rich countries to wriggle out of their Gleneagles promises, as they focus on the domestic agenda. Yet the economic crisis makes the need for more and better aid more urgent that ever. Poor countries are being hit hard by a succession of factors linked to the crisis.

As we in the UK reduce spending on the high street, the resulting fall in imports of textiles is leading to thousands of layoffs in countries such as Cambodia, with women particularly affected.

The slump in global demand for commodities (copper, diamonds, oil and timber) is also resulting in layoffs, including 8,000 copper miners in Zambia, and 90 per cent of Sierra Leone's diamond miners. Botswana, best known here from Alexander McCall Smith's novels, was forced to mothball the diamond mines that generate 80 per cent of its exports. One of the big differences between poor countries and the UK is that if you lose your job you have no welfare state to fall back on.

Faced with lower growth rates, falling tax revenues and reduced sources of finance, only aid can prevent many poor country governments from having to cut back health and education budgets that are already too low. Certainly few have any funds to invest in economic stimulus packages that have been the talk of the economic pages for months in rich countries. In Africa, only Gabon is in a position to undertake a fiscal stimulus, according the IMF, while very few other countries – Mozambique and Tanzania among them – are placed to maintain fiscal spending. For the rest spending cuts are almost inevitable.

So could the G8 change all this even if it wanted to? One thing the economic crisis has shown is that when they want to the leaders of rich nations can find the money to respond. What if the money spent on bailing out banks had been spent on aid? It is estimated that the $8.42 trillion promised by rich country governments to bail out banks would be enough to end global extreme poverty for 50 years. The amount being used for US bank bailouts would have covered meeting the cost of all of the Millennium Development Goals eight times over. This would save millions of lives and would of course boost economic growth, as people get better healthcare, get better educated and are better able to take and create economic opportunities. The economic crisis highlights yet again how quality of life for the citizens of rich countries is considered far more important than the deaths of citizens of poor countries.

What does all of this mean for those seven men and one woman enjoying their pizza and pasta in Italy with Silvio Berlusconi at the head of the table? It means they must stick to their Gleneagles promises, and indeed exceed them. It means they should be meeting the 0.7 per cent promise now. It means they need to take urgent action to curb the effect of the economic crisis on the developing world if their ambition to show any sort of global leadership means anything. If they are ever going to be worthy of ten out of ten on aid, and have any chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals, they need to do much, much better.

&#149 Malcolm Fleming is campaigns manager for Oxfam Scotland.