The G8’s first “accountability summit” has closed with a joint statement that makes no mention of the organisation’s landmark undertaking to boost aid to the world’s poorest countries by $50 billion.
The extraordinary omission has enraged aid agencies gathered in Toronto for the back-to-back G8 and G20 meetings. They blame it on France, Germany and Italy, which are understood to have lobbied to drop any mention of the bold pledge made in Gleneagles five years ago having failed to increase their development spending as promised.
“This is the first year since 2005 that Gleneagles has not been mentioned in the final communiqué and this is the year that the money is actually due,” Meredith Alexander of Action Aid told The Times. “How is that an accountability summit?”
Under Canada’s leadership the G8 has produced a new promise to spend a total of $7.3 billion on cutting maternal deaths in pregnancy and childbirth, but the money is not all new and much of it comes from non-G8 countries and the Gates Foundation.
Having handed responsibility for global financial management to the G20, the G8’s purpose is now in doubt and its credibility on the line.
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“G8 promises have become a debased currency,” Patrick Watt of Save the Children said. “Despite all the focus on accountability at this summit, the one big pledge made in 2005 – the one everyone in the UK went out and marched for – has been dropped. It’s a deliberate move and a major omission.”
The Gleneagles pledge coincided with a surge in public awareness of development issues with the Make Poverty History campaign and the inclusion of Bob Geldof and Bono in G8 deliberations.
The onset of a global recession since then has made increased aid spending harder – but not impossible – for western governments to justify to voters. Britain has kept its promise to boost development funding to 0.7 per cent of public spending and the new coalition government has earned wide praise in Toronto for reaffirming that commitment in last week’s emergency budget.
The US has also kept its promises from 2005, though they were less ambitious in terms of the proportion of GDP.
“We know there’s a tough financial situation out there and we all need a stable world economy,” Ms Alexander said. “But [the G8 leaders] made these promises and the least responsible response is just to pretend they never happened. So many of us were there at Gleneagles. It was a seminal moment, like Live Aid, and to throw it all away now is just sad.”
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A quarter of the 12-page G8 communiqué is devoted to development issues but the closest it comes to a reference to Gleneagles is a bland statement that, “We reaffirm our commitments, including on ODA [overseas development aid] and enhancing aid effectiveness.”
An explicit reference to the 2005 summit was included in brackets in earlier drafts of the document. British negotiators are understood to have lobbied to keep it there, but sources says they received no support from the US or Canada and active resistance from France, Germany and Italy.