Activists, fearing the Iraq war will sidetrack the fight against poverty, warned on Friday the world is sliding on its commitments to Africa.
”Ministers meeting in Washington must not be sidetracked from delivering on the commitments made last year to the people of Africa,” Oxfam International said in a statement.
”World leaders should launch a war on poverty, starting with Africa,” it said ahead of weekend meetings of the 184-nation World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The United States and Europe promised last year to lift aid by more than $20-billion annually by 2006 if if developing countries pursue free markets, human rights and democracy.
The initiative was aimed at breathing life into flagging internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including halving world poverty, turning back HIV/Aids and ensuring primary school education for all children by 2015.
”It is time for the rich countries to grasp the financing nettle and deliver on the promises they made to tackle illiteracy, disease and poverty in Africa,” said ActionAid policy adviser Patrick Watt.
”Africa is massively off-track in reaching the MDGs,” he said in a statement.
Infant and maternal mortality rates were increasing, life expectancy had fallen by 15 years in the past two decades and 50-million children would remain out of school by 2015, he said.
”Negligible progress has been made towards the target of halving the number of people living in poverty but failure is not inevitable with strong backing from the donor countries.”
Activists said the world was slipping on key promises:
Aid. Aid to Arica was lower in the past four years than at any point since 1984, ActionAid said in a statement.
Education. Donors were delivering just $400-million a year, less than 10% of the money needed to meet the 2015 target, and only 40% of African children went to school, Oxfam and ActionAid said.
Trade. Subsidies for agriculture, from European sugar to US cotton, were pricing developing countries out of world markets, Oxfam said.
”Rich countries should stop the dumping,” said Oxfam advocacy director Phil Twyford. ”The World Bank and IMF should stop making trade liberalisation a condition of lending.”
Debt. Donor countries promised one billion dollars last year to top up an international plan to lower debt levels in the world’s poorest countries, the so-called heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative.
”Yet so far the response has been dismal. Only $850-million of this funding has been pledged and just $39-million has been forthcoming in actual commitments,” ActionAid said.
HIV/Aids. Donors so far have failed to commit $1,6-billion dollars needed to start a new round of grants from the global funds for Aids, the ActionAid statement said.
Data, a debt, Aids, trade and Africa advocacy group launched by U2 rock group’s lead singer Bono, called on finance ministers to lay the groundwork for a poverty-fighting summit of the Group of Seven industrial powers plus Russia in June in the French resort of Evian.
”The finance ministers this weekend must prepare the ground for a G7 summit that is memorable for the right reasons: unity and harmony between the G7 donor nations in the war they have been promising to wage for years — the war against poverty and disease,” said Data executive director Jamie Drummond. – Sapa-AFP