DATA has found so far the G8 is moving painfully slow on meeting their commitments to Africa proceeding at half the pace necessary to keep the 2005 G8's life-saving promises. The DATA Report, published today for the first time, will monitor G8 progress annually until the promises made at Gleneagles are kept, serving as both a report card on 2005 and a road map for meeting the G8 commitments moving forward to 2007 and beyond to 2010.
"The G8 strode forward down the promised path on debt, but have shuffled at half-pace on aid, and fell backwards on trade," said Jamie Drummond, Executive Director of DATA. "The campaigners around the world who got the G8 close to the right path in the first place must now encourage them to accelerate down it. After a slow start in 2005 a faster pace is now needed or the G8 Africa targets will be missed."
The report finds that the United States has increased development assistance to Africa by $480 million in 2005, but that this is off-track from the ramp up needed to reach a doubling of U.S. assistance to Africa pledged by President Bush. In order to meet its Gleneagles commitment, the U.S. would need to increase development assistance to Africa by $720 million in 2006.
"The U.S. deserves credit for helping achieve a multilateral agreement on debt cancellation," said Drummond. "America has been a surprising leader, though relative to its economic size it could do more for Africa's poor. It's essential that Congress fully funds the President's overall request for fighting AIDS and extreme poverty ... they are stepping away from that commitment."
For the last several years, President Bush has requested from Congress large increases in development assistance that would keep the U.S. on track. These requests have consistently been cut back, putting the President's G8 pledge in jeopardy. Building on Live 8, the over 2.3 million people and 80 organizations part of ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History have worked to support that call, asking Congress to keep America's G8 promises and fully fund the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty by allocating an additional 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget to poverty-focused development assistance.
The report offers country by country analysis, as well as findings on the key focus areas of debt, aid, trade and efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.
"This debt-aid-trade package of policy promises isn't a menu to pick and choose from; it's a trinity that must be delivered together or neither one goes as far," said Drummond. "Debt cancellation needs assistance needs trade, if we are to truly help Africa beat AIDS and extreme poverty."
The report details good news on debt cancellation -- the G8 are on track to meet their commitments. 19 of the world's poorest countries, 14 of them in Africa, have already had their multilateral debts cancelled with immediate and tangible benefits with a total of 44 ultimately eligible. Debt relief is already making a difference. In Zambia, user fees have been abolished for basic healthcare and the newly freed up resources are being used to pay thousands more doctors, nurses and teachers. In Tanzania, money is being used to import free or heavily subsidised food for 3.7 million people at risk of hunger due to drought.
On getting a world trade deal that is good for African development, the report finds the G8 are not just off track -- they've stepped backwards. The Doha development round of negotiations are on the verge of complete collapse. Ministerial talks beginning today in Geneva rekindle hopes of a pro-poor deal, but to date there has been more posturing than deal-making, a lack of urgency and no focus on Africa in the round so far.
On development assistance, the picture presented by donors through their own aid reporting is incredibly murky routine inflation of the figures by counting debt relief makes it hard for the true trend to be identified. Figures uncovered by DATA suggest the G8 spent an extra $1.6 billion on Africa in 2005. In order to be on track to meet their 2010 commitments, they must collectively increase development assistance to Africa by $3.9 billion (£2.14b) in 2006, and each year thereafter. To be on track, all donors -- G8 and non-G8 combined -- must increase their aid to Africa by $5 billion a year for the next 5 years.
France is the only G8 country on track to meet 2010 development assistance goals, although opaque reporting systems make it unclear how much funding is non-Nigerian debt relief or real aid flows. The U.S., UK and Italy increased aid to Africa in 2005 but need to do more, while Germany flatlined and Canada actually decreased aid to Africa in 2005. Data on Japanese aid to Africa in 2005 was not available.
In the fight against HIV/AIDS, there have been significant increases in the number of people in Africa receiving AIDS treatment, up from 100,000 in 2003 to 810,000 by the end of 2005. However, keeping the G8 pledge of near-universal access to treatment by 2010 will require doubling the rate of uptake from 355,000 to 638,000 more a year. Donors are currently spending only half of what is needed to achieve this, and there is not nearly enough emphasis on prevention.
Donors must quickly scale up both bilateral and multilateral support - particularly for the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - to meet this critical need. This can be remedied at the Durban replenishment conference this weekend and the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto in August. Missing the Gleneagles targets would mean that 1.4 million people in Africa will not receive treatment in 2010.
"Above all, this report shows that G8 assistance is saving lives in Africa at a faster rate than before, which would make any slowing down the pace even more inexplicable and inexcusable," said Drummond. "This stuff works. Campaigning works, aid works, so let's do more of it. The DATA Report offers a map from Russia to the G8 summit in Germany, and beyond to the 2010 goal line to deliver these promises."
Source: US Newswire
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