Leading aid organisations demanded on Wednesday that Group of Eight (G8) countries, in particular summit host Italy, take urgent action to make up a $23-billion shortfall in aid promised to Africa.
Many of the governments in the G8 industrialised nations have not fully honoured the declaration they signed at their 2005 summit to send an extra $50-billion in aid to the world’s poorest continent by 2010.
With one year to go, and with delegates gathering in the Italian mountain town of L’Aquila, campaign groups are lobbying hard, insisting leaders show Africa the same speedy decision-making they deployed to bail out failing banks.
”It’s time for the G8 to come to the table in the next three hours and come up with an emergency programme,” said Farida Bena, head of international aid agency Oxfam’s Italian office.
”Twenty-three billion dollars is not a lot of money compared to what has been spent bailing out the banks,” she said. ”In times of crisis, leaders come together and act as leaders. We would like to see leaders do their job.”
Oliver Buston, a spokesman for the One campaign led by rock stars Bono and Bob Geldof, told summit reporters: ”We’re trying to hold the G8 accountable for the promises they made.”
Geldof clashed with summit host Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi this week, calling into question his legitimacy to chair the meeting after his country paid only three percent of the money it promised in 2005.
Buston said that G8 members Canada and Japan had paid more than promised, while Britain, Germany and the United States had made some progress, but hit out at Italy and France for failing to meet their commitments.
He showed reporters a copy of the 2005 G8 summit communique, signed by Berlusconi, which he described as a ”contract with Africa”, calling on Italy to reverse its decision to cut its aid budget by €411-million.
Publicity surrounding the intervention of Geldof and Bono has embarrassed Berlusconi in the run up to his summit, which he hoped would help burnish his image after humiliating revelations about his private life.
According to press reports, the Italian leader apologised for the aid shortfall in his meeting with Geldof. Bono, meanwhile, challenged Italians over their premier’s position during a concert on Tuesday in Milan.
”If you think he should do what he promised for the poorest and most vulnerable in Africa, you need to let him know. Because he is not,” the U2 frontman told the crowd.
Aid agency Save the Children said it was shocked that Italy had announced that it would cut its foreign aid to poor countries by another 10 percent in 2010, after a 56 percent reduction made in December 2008.
”The Italian government has used the eve of its own summit to announce not a reinstatement of aid but an extraordinary further cut,” said the charity’s spokesman Adrian Lovett.
”It’s a disgrace. Coming from the host of the G8, this action raises serious questions about the credibility of the summit.”
Save the Children warned ahead of the summit that 75 000 children would die for lack of health care during the period of the three-day meeting.
While some might expect aid budgets to shrink as Western economies face a global economic slowdown, Bena said that an Oxfam-commissioned survey found that three in four Italians back support for Africa. — Sapa