G8/G20 season has arrived. Representatives of the wealthiest nations in the world are descending upon Toronto and Huntsville to discuss how to help the planet’s poor, among other things. The big whigs in this whole economic affair are Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
This past Sunday, right before the launch of plans and protests, the first ever G8 Accountability Report was released. That’s right, the world’s powerhouses have been issued a report card, which assesses their progress on more than 50 development pledges made in past summits.
The number of concern coming out of this report is 10 billion. At the Gleneagles Summit in 2005, the G8 and other countries with deep aid pockets aimed to increase their development assistance by $50 billion over five years. This time has lapsed, and these nations are $10 billion short of their target. Another $10 billion shortfall occurred in the realm of aid to Africa, where $15 billion of the proposed $25 billion increase has been achieved.
To get a better sense of what $10 billion can accomplish, a Toronto Star article provides ten ways of spending $1 billion in developing countries. Among them are saving 5 million children from severe malnutrition and training 4 million community health workers.
Despite the G8’s $10-billion deficits, Canada has met its Gleneagles pledge to double its international and African aid. However, next year Canada is freezing its $5 billion overseas development budget, which falls far short of the UN-recommended target of contributing 0.7 per cent of GDP to aid. While report cards are important to gauge what has been achieved, they also open up the challenge of coming up with solutions in the areas where achievements fell flat.
“I think it’s great that they’ve actually provided this accountability,” Oxfam spokesman Mark Friend told the Financial Post. “But it’s very clear that we, the public, have to hold their feet to the fire so they make good on these promises.”
In other words, it’s time for the G8 to bring up their grades.
