G-8 Plans to Address Aid Accountability

from the Washington Post

Before Summit in Japan, Bush Urges Monitoring Mechanism for African Assistance

By Michael Abramowitz

TOYAKO, Japan - Leaders of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations expect to sign off this week on a plan to provide detailed assessments of how well individual countries are fulfilling promises of development assistance to Africa, according to sources familiar with the initiative.

The plan is likely to be viewed as a significant breakthrough by nonprofit groups pushing the G-8 to be more accountable about the billions of dollars in well-publicized aid its members have promised Africa for fighting malaria, AIDS and other diseases.

Several recent studies suggest that the G-8 countries will miss their goal, set in 2005, of doubling developmental assistance to Africa to $50 billion annually unless they reenergize their efforts.

"Donors are yet again 'off track' in delivering upon their commitments and, with every 'off track' year that passes, fully delivering the commitments by 2010 becomes more difficult," the anti-poverty group Debt AIDS Trade Africa, or DATA, reported last month.

Arriving here for the first of four days of meetings, President Bush made clear Sunday that developing an international monitoring mechanism for African assistance is one of his top priorities at his last G-8 summit. He suggested that Japan, the host of this year's summit, is on board with the idea and praised Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda for a "strong belief in the accountability aspect of this meeting."

"In other words, when people say they're [going to] make a pledge to feed the hungry or provide for the ill, that we ought to honor that pledge," Bush told reporters at a joint news conference with Fukuda.

The two leaders met privately and then dined Sunday at this scenic mountain resort, before the annual gathering of large industrialized countries that is aimed at developing strategies to tackle problems such as global warming and the food crisis.

Bush was eager to calm relations with Japan, the most important U.S. ally in Asia, which in recent weeks have been strained by his decision to remove North Korea from the official U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. That move came as part of a deal aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

During the news conference and a meeting with Fukuda and his top aides, Bush sought to assure the Japanese that he will not abandon efforts to determine the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Koreans in the 1970s and '80s, a highly sensitive subject in Japan.

Bush also defended a decision announced last Thursday to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games next month in Beijing, saying that skipping the event would be an "affront to the Chinese people."

Human rights advocates concerned about Tibet and those seeking to pressure China on resolving the Darfur crisis in Sudan have urged Bush to stay away from the opening ceremonies. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he will not attend the opening, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is considering a boycott of the Games.

But Bush said he views the Olympics as a opportunity to cheer on athletes, not to make a political statement. "I had the honor of dealing with the Chinese -- two Chinese presidents during my term, and every time I have visited with them, I have talked about religious freedom and human rights," he said. "I guess I don't need the Olympics to express my concerns. I've been doing so."

Fukuda weighed in, announcing that he, too, will attend the opening ceremonies. "There certainly may be problems with China, but even so, they are striving to improve things," he said.

Bush opened his second day of diplomacy at the summit Monday by meeting privately with the new Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev said later that the two agreed on "matters pertaining to Iran and North Korea" but expressed differences on the U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense system in European countries.

The plan to set up a monitoring system to track development promises to Africa has been one of the main U.S. objectives for the summit. Although the United States is under pressure from other G-8 countries to set more ambitious targets for addressing global warming, Bush and his aides have been planning for months to turn the tables on their allies by pressuring them on aid to Africa.

U.S. officials say they are on target to meet their goal of $8.7 billion in development assistance for sub-Saharan Africa by 2010, and independent groups confirm these statements. The DATA report singled out France, Japan and Canada for reducing aid. The United States, it suggested, was among G-8 countries that had made less ambitious pledges.

"On the whole, the EU G-8 members made more ambitious commitments, but thus far have not delivered extensively," DATA wrote. "On the other hand, Canada, Japan and the U.S. made relatively less ambitious commitments and yet are moderately closer to meeting them."

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