The World is Still Waiting

Broken G8 promises are costing millions of lives

As the 2007 German G8 summit approaches, the demands of the millions of anti-poverty campaigners worldwide are clear. G8 leaders must increase and improve aid to provide health, education, water and sanitation for all. They must cancel more debt and deliver trade justice. They must take urgent action to bring peace to the world's most troubled countries and to halt the devastating impact of climate change. Where action has been taken by G8 countries, lives are being saved. Yet despite some areas of real progress, in the past two years overall progress has fallen far short of promises. The cost of this inaction is millions of lives lost due to poverty. G8 countries must meet their promises to the world.

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Summary

Poverty and suffering could be ended in our lifetime, and our leaders must do everything in their power to make this happen. This was the clear demand of the 40 million people in 36 countries who took part in the Global Call to Action Against Poverty in 2005. A year later, in the space of just one day, 24 million people across the world stood up against poverty as part of World Poverty Day.

Of all the thousands of global meetings in the political calendar, the G8 summit has become most famous for its grand promises to tackle global poverty. For campaigners, it is a crucial moment to hold world leaders to account for delivering on those promises. This year, the summit will be held in the exclusive resort of Heiligendamm on the Baltic coast of Germany. Campaigners will descend on Germany from around the world to make their voices heard.

The action demanded of the G8 is clear. Poor-country debts must be cancelled, aid increased, trade made fair, peacekeeping and arms control achieved, and concerted action taken to tackle climate change and its impact on the poorest people. No task could be more urgent, no task more important. Ending poverty is the challenge of our generation.

Where action has been taken by G8 countries, many lives are being saved. Since the G8 in 2005, the majority of debts owed by 22 countries to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have been cancelled. Twenty million more children are in school. Eighteen million mosquito nets have been distributed, and more than a million people now have access to treatment for HIV and AIDS. An Arms Trade Treaty now seems within reach, with 80 per cent of the world’s governments supporting it and the USA the only country voting against it. Yet despite this progress, rich countries have still come short of doing what they promised, and progress is too often patchy, poor, and painfully slow.

Shockingly, instead of G8 aid to poor countries rising, it fell in 2006 for the first time since 1997, though it is higher than in 2004. At the G8 in Gleneagles in 2005, rich countries promised to have increased annual aid levels by $50bn by 2010. Instead, based on the actual trend since these promises were made, Oxfam calculates that the G8 could miss this target by a staggering $30bn. The price of this broken promise? Based on figures from UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO), Oxfam has calculated that if this money were available for vital health interventions for mothers, children, and those suffering from HIV and AIDS, it could save at least five million lives.

The Darfur crisis is in its fourth year, and the number of people there who are dependent on aid has doubled to almost four million. International trade talks remain moribund, limping on without the political commitment from rich countries that could deliver trade justice for the world’s poor people. Finally, rich countries are failing to halt catastrophic climate change and save those whose lives it is already damaging. Instead of providing the billions of dollars poor countries need to adapt to the impact of climate change, they are providing just a few million and diverting even these small amounts from existing aid budgets.

The world can’t wait. Millions of women, children, and men are paying for this inaction with their lives.

The price of a broken promise

What is the price of a broken promise? The girl who gets up in the morning to fetch water, and walks past her friends who are instead on their way to school. The woman who dreads her child’s worsening cough, knowing treatment is priced far beyond reach. The boy who watches his baby sister fade away, killed by dirty water. The women who leave the refugee camp for firewood, knowing that their friends were raped and killed while on the same errand only the day before. Crops wilting with the worsening drought; floods washing a family away. A farmer crippled by debt, unable to scrape enough money together to feed her family.

In some rich countries, thanks to 24-hour news, these scenes are familiar to all. But at the same time they are unfamiliar, hard to grasp. Imagine that you and your children had no choice but to drink contaminated and dirty water this morning, despite knowing it could kill. Imagine that you knew that your child was seriously ill but had to choose between paying the cost of medicine or buying food for the rest of your family. Imagine that one in four of the babies born recently to your friends and relations would be dead within five years. Imagine that you risked your life leaving the house after dark, a prisoner of daylight. This is the daily reality for millions of women, children, and men, especially in Africa. It is a reality that need not continue. It is a reality that millions are campaigning to eliminate from the face of our planet once and for all.

The G8 cannot solve all the world’s problems. But by delivering what they promised in 2005 and by going further to do all that they can to eliminate poverty and suffering, they could make an incredible difference to the lives of millions. Two years on, the dust has settled, and the G8 is preparing to meet once again in Germany. Africa, HIV and AIDS, health, and climate change are all on the agenda. Campaigning organisations including Oxfam are demanding concrete progress on all these issues. The G8 must account to the world for its performance against its own targets. G8 countries must stand up and be counted. And two years on, the unacceptable truth is that they are breaking their promises, with terrible consequences.

The pace of international summits is sedate to say the least, with polite agreements pre-arranged in advance in comfortable surroundings, and a premium on warm words that are, to use the diplomatic term, ‘constructively ambiguous’. The stark difference between this and the urgency of what needs to happen is palpable. The last two years have seen one million women die in pregnancy or child-birth, for want of simple medical care. This is the equivalent of every woman who gave birth last year in Germany and Canada combined. The last two years have also seen 21 million children under the age of five perish for no reason other than the world’s inaction. That is the equivalent of every child under five in Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Italy, and the UK combined [1].

As the eyes of the world turn to Germany in June, the G8 must answer for its failure, and act to address it. With debt cancellation and with the fight against HIV and AIDS, G8 countries have shown that they can take action if they want to; action that is saving lives. They must fulfill their promise to the world.

Notes

1. Figures from UNICEF website. Total number of children under five in Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Italy, and the UK is 20.9 million.

Date of publication: May 2007