GSUM02
ActionAid International UK Submission
to International Development Committee 19th July
Background
On Tuesday 19th of July,
UK Secretary of State for International Development, Hilary Benn,
will give evidence to the IDC on the outcomes of the G8 Summit
in Gleneagles. His evidence will address four key areas:
· Resources
for meeting the MDGs - debt relief and aid
· Trade
Justice - a sustainable route out of poverty
· Conflict,
governance & politics
· Keeping
promises - monitoring & accountability
ActionAid UK, as part of ActionAid
International, has closely monitored the G8 summit outcomes. Based
on our work on over 40 countries worldwide, and the key role we
play in both the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)
and the Make Poverty History coalition (MPH), we would like to
make the following observations:
Resources for meeting the MDGs
Debt relief. The
Summit re-announced the debt relief deal agreed at the G8 Finance
Ministers Meeting in London in June. This will provide 100% cancellation
of the debts owed by 18 HIPCs to the World Bank, IMF and African
Development Bank. The Summit also welcomed the agreement made
with Nigeria to provide substantial debt cancellation through
the Paris Club.
While the debt relief offered is welcome
and will undoubtedly benefit the 18 countries immediately eligible,
the deal on offer only provides some 10% of the debt cancellation
needed. Moreover, debt relief will still come with harmful economic
conditionality, such as privatization and trade liberalization,
attached. Some creditors are also allegedly proposing to increase
the burden of IMF conditionality, even after countries have reached
so-called 'Completion Point' in the HIPC initiative.
Aid: The
G8 summit announced that aid to all developing countries would
increase by $50bn between 2004 and 2010. Again, any aid increase
is welcome, but this amount is too little, comes too late and
is largely a re-announcement of commitments made in previous years.
The summit also failed to make concrete commitments to improve
aid effectiveness, for example by untying aid. G8 leaders did
acknowledge that economic policies should be determined by local
people not staff in the World and IMF, a move which was welcomed
by NGOs including ActionAid. However, the real test of the G8's
commitment will be the extent to which they use their power on
the World Bank's board to commit to ending harmful World Bank
conditionality at the Annual Meetings in September.
Trade Justice - a sustainable route
out of poverty
G8 leaders failed to commit to ending
the forced liberalization of low-income countries. At the same
time there is deep concern that we will see a further push on
liberalizing services and non-agricultural markets that will threaten
livelihoods and jobs in poor countries worldwide. No date has
been set to end export subsidies. Despite the talk at Gleneagles,
in ongoing trade talks in Geneva the US and EU are still pushing
to retain subsidies by another name. There was also a failure
to prohibit the dumping of goods in developing countries at prices
which farmers are unable to compete against, devastating livelihoods.
No undertaking from the G8 to make multinationals legally accountable
for their social and environmental impact
Keeping promises - monitoring & accountability
The review of the Africa Action Plan
acknowledges progress needs to be made on aid effectiveness, particularly
in providing predictable multi-year or annual commitments. Yet
little actual progress at Gleneagles on aid quality in terms of
quantifiable targets being set.
G8 summits in the past have failed
to deliver on promises made. It will be vital to ensure that the
promises made at this year's summit will be met.
One of the first tests of commitments
made at Gleneagles will come in September at the Global Fund replenishment
conference in London. ActionAid strongly welcomed the announcement
of the G8 supporting universal access to anti-retrovirals by 2010.
However, there is a funding gap of $18 billion over the next 3
years, which the replenishment conference will have to meet if
this target is to be implemented.
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