Aid agencies dismiss G8 aid pledge

from The Guardian

Larry Elliott and Patrick Wintour in Heiligendamm and Mark Tran

The leaders of the G8 today pledged to spend $60bn (£30bn) over the next few years on HIV/Aids, malaria and TB - a promise immediately dismissed by development groups as a smokescreen for the west's broken promises to the world's poor.

Although the G8 stressed its "firm resolve" to keep the pledges it made at Gleneagles two years ago, aid agencies said that the leading industrial countries were well off-track to meet the targets set for 2010 and had watered down their commitments.

Despite such misgivings, Tony Blair said that today's agreement represented a true partnership between Africa and the developed world, with promises of good governance and an anti-corruption drive.

Mr Blair told reporters: "There is a $60bn commitment for help on HIV/Aids, there's a major initiative on education and funding for that, and support for peacekeeping, support for Africa's ability to trade its goods, support also for proper governance, because this is a partnership."

British sources said that the summit had agreed to boost funding on education, peacekeeping and health. "The truth is that we have got a long way to go but great progress has been made," a source said.

The prime minister welcomed the decision by Japan to put Africa on the agenda for next year's summit.

Under the health proposals, the $30bn recently pledged by the US for HIV/AIDS treatment over the next five years will be matched by a similar sum from the other G8 countries.

The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria will receive a $6-8bn budget by 2010 - a threefold increase from its current level of support.

The G8 said it would treat five million people in Africa suffering from HIV/Aids over the coming years as a step towards the universal coverage by 2010 pledged at Gleneagles.

Worldwide, these diseases claim more than six million lives every year, with the threat particularly acute in Africa.

About 63% of all people in the world infected with HIV live in Africa, while malaria is one of the leading causes of death in children in Africa.

Michel Kazatchkine, the executive director of the Global Fund, said: "We appreciate the role of G8 leaders in reaffirming the universal treatment commitment."

Privately, the Global Fund said the summit communique had been a compromise between George Bush's determination to include a specific target for the numbers to be treated for HIV/Aids and Mr Blair's insistence that the G8 should stick to its promise of universal access.

Officials worked all night as they wrangled over the wording of the text. Campaigners for Africa said that the pledge was made up largely of money which had already been announced, including $30bn from the US, and fell short of UN targets for extending treatment to tackle Aids.

"While lives will be saved with more money for Aids, this represents a cap on ambition that will ultimately cost millions more lives," said Steve Cockburn of the Stop Aids Campaign.

"Mr Blair's legacy could have been concrete action to meet the promise of universal access to HIV treatment and millions of lives saved, but now it will be up to Gordon Brown to rescue this promise."

Andrew Mitchell, the shadow development spokesman, said: "This looks like smoke and mirrors. The significant downgrading of the Aids target is bad news and a disappointing outcome for the summit."

Aditi Sharma, Action Aid's head of HIV/Aids campaign, said: "Even this $60bn smokescreen can't cover up for the abject failure of the G8 to move forward on their Aids promises.

"What we came here for was a comprehensive funding plan. Instead in the last few days the G8 have diluted their commitment to universal access."

Some officials close to the talks admitted that the timetable for raising and spending the $60bn was unclear, and development charities said there was no recognition of the fact that the G8 is well off-track to meet its commitment of increasing aid spending by $50bn by 2010.

The Gleneagles summit called for increasing aid to $50bn a year through 2010, with half of that going to Africa itself. But amounts pledged since then are set to miss the target by $30bn, anti-poverty and aid groups said.

In 2006, overall aid from G8 countries, artificially swollen by debt relief for Iraq and Nigeria, actually decreased in comparison with 2005, activists said.

"For this reason the reaffirmation at Heiligendamm of the Gleneagles pledges lack credibility," said George Gelber, head of policy at Cafod, the Catholic development group.

"There is no reason to think that these targets will be any easier to achieve in the three remaining years before 2010."

Matt Phillips, of Save the Children, said: "The G8 leaders have not delivered a concrete plan for tackling the crushing levels of African poverty.

"Today's deal was warm in words but that's cold comfort for the millions of African children who will continue to die through the lack of free healthcare.

"This is a particular blow to the hundreds of thousands of campaigners who are calling for dramatic action. The campaigning will go on."

The leaders began their first working session of the day without Mr Bush, who was ill and stayed in his room after meeting privately with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

The others met the presidents of Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria.

Apart from Africa, Kosovo was also on the agenda, with France pushing a plan to delay a UN vote on independence for the Serbian province in exchange for Russia agreeing not to veto the outcome.

Russia backs Serbia's insistence it should retain sovereignty over the province, which rebelled against Belgrade's rule in 1998-9.

The west sees independence as inevitable and fears that delay will lead to instability in the region.