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Africa: G8 Fail Test
Africa: G8 Fail Test
Date distributed (ymd): 010721
Document reposted by APIC
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information service
provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa Policy
Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on
Africa). Find more information for action for Africa at
http://www.africapolicy.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +security/peace+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
In spite of efforts to stress their achievements in establishing a
global health trust fund and in discussing issues of world poverty,
the leaders of the world's richest nations meeting in Genoa this
weekend made little headway in convincing skeptics of their
political will to confront the issues. The leaders committed
themselves to launch a detailed plan for Africa over the next year,
while claiming they rather than the protesters most legitimately
spoke for the poor. But the bland official statement from the
summit fell far short of addressing the principal issues outlined
in the pre-summit analyses below from Africa Action Executive
Director Salih Booker and from Oxfam UK.
For yesterday's official statement by the G7 (Russia is not
included in the group for the economic statement), see
http://usinfo.state.gov/admin/004/wwwh01072022.html. For additional
background see http://www.g7.utoronto.ca
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The G8 Play God in Genoa
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) [
http://www.mg.co.za]
July 20, 2001
By Salih Booker
The agenda for the summit in Genoa this week of the seven richest
countries -- joined by Russia to make the Group of Eight (G8) --
will include issues from both sides of the global economic divide.
Preoccupied with their own economic well-being, they nevertheless
wish to be seen as compassionate about the global poverty at their
door that they can no longer ignore.
Those seated around the table represent little more than one-eighth
of the world's 6.2-billion people. But they account for almost
two-thirds of the world's annual income. Together they have a
decisive influence over international financial institutions,
including direct control of 46% of the votes in the World Bank and
48% of the votes in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The G8
members similarly control other powerful international
institutions, such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
In short, the G8 represents a sort of global minority rule, largely
dictating the architecture of the world's political economy. The
European Commission also participates in these meetings, giving
representation to some smaller European countries. Asia's only
representative is Japan. And the rest of Asia, Latin America and
Africa are entirely unrepresented, though these regions comprise
the majority of the world's population and nearly all of the
world's poor -- those earning less than $2 a day.
Although their decisions may mean life or death for tens of
millions with no seat at this table, there is no global body that
can demand accountability from the rich-country leaders.
Increasingly, however, world public opinion is monitoring the words
and actions of the "Global Eight". Spurred by demonstrations,
global civic networks and press coverage of topics such as Aids and
debt, an international movement for global justice is emerging to
provide a counterweight.
African countries, equal in population to the G8 but with only
one-fortieth of their income, will be watching the Genoa meeting
closely for action on cancelling poor-country debt, supporting
greater global investment in health, education and other public
goods, and addressing developing country concerns on international
trade rules.
Despite their impoverishment and in the face of the worst plague in
human history, sub-Saharan African countries are nevertheless
paying out more than $13-billion in debt service a year to wealthy
creditors. Meanwhile, the debt reduction initiative launched by the
G8 two years ago in Cologne has shown negligible results. The key
to making more resources available in Africa to fight Aids is
cancelling the debts owed to the World Bank and the IMF. So far the
rich countries have evaded the issue of cancellation.
The same rich countries have also demonstrated a brutal
unwillingness to finance the war against Aids. Total pledges for
the global health fund proposed by United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan may top $1-billion by the end of the G8 summit. But much
of that is for future years and so the commitments still add up to
much less than one-tenth of the estimated $10-billion a year needed
to fund prevention and treatment efforts that could end the
pandemic. The richest countries do not yet consider making public
investments in addressing global problems as obligations to provide
their fair share for the common good.
The rich countries have repeatedly promised to provide 0.7% of
their gross national product for overall official development
assistance for poorer countries. Although five small European
countries now meet the target, not one of the G7 members reaches
even half that figure.
The United States ranks at the bottom, with only 0.1% of gross
national product going to development assistance, and the Bush
administration plans even further decreases in US commitments.
Amazingly, the mantra of the G8 is simply that greater world trade
will eventually benefit everyone. African and other developing
countries are divided on whether the WTO should open a new round of
trade talks. But they are united in their concern that issues of
intellectual property rights and patents not be allowed to cripple
efforts to cope with the Aids pandemic and the wider global health
emergency.
Whatever happens in Genoa, these issues will not go away. The same
rich countries will also be the key players in the IMF/World Bank
meetings in Washington later this year, the WTO meeting in Qatar in
November, and the meeting on global development finance in Mexico
in March. Increasingly, whenever and wherever they meet, the
question posed will be whether the G8 will respond to the needs of
the world's majority or whether it is merely a vehicle for
exercising minority rule within a system of global apartheid.
Oxfam Policy Papers - Oxfam International Briefing Paper 07/01
Where's the money? G8 promises, G8 failures
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/g8.html
The richest countries of the world promised to help developing
countries halve poverty, reduce child mortality by two thirds, and
ensure every child gets a free and good quality primary education.
All by 2015. There remains a huge gap between promises and action.
Inadequate commitments to meet a global crisis in health; inaction
in education, and a debt relief programme that leaves most
countries still paying more on debt than on the health of their
citizens.
Oxfam calls on the G8 to fully fund their part of the Global
HIV/AIDS and Health Fund; to launch a Global Initiative to end
school fees and get all the world's children into school, and to
cancel 100% of IMF and World Bank debt for countries which cannot
achieve the 2015 goals without additional debt relief.
Oxfam is concerned that the richest countries in the world may once
again fail the poor and break past promises to fight poverty. G8
governments will meet in Genoa, on the weekend of 20th July, to
discuss efforts to help the 1.2 billion people who live on less
than a dollar a day [1]. Promises on health, on education and on
debt are not being met because the richest countries in the world
are failing to provide the necessary finance.
The G8 summit will discuss a global development crisis. A checklist
of indicators of human welfare point to a bleak picture:
- 11 million people dying each year from easily preventable and
treatable diseases;
- 36 million people live with HIV/AIDS, three quarters of them in
Africa;
- 125 million children are out of school - equivalent to the total
number of children between the ages of 6 and 14 in Europe and North
America - with two thirds of them girls;
- almost a billion adults, mainly women, cannot read or write
properly.
Without serious action, future prospects for poor people are in
jeopardy. Although G8 governments have committed themselves to
ensuring the achievement of the international development goals for
2015, including halving world poverty, reducing child mortality by
two thirds and ensuring every child gets a free and good quality
primary education, current trends indicate failure.
Oxfam research shows that child death rates are falling at half the
rate required to reach the 2015 goal. On current trends there will
be 8.5 million child deaths in 2015, twice the number that would
occur if the 2015 goals were met. In education, 75 million children
will still remain out of school by 2015, and three quarters of
these children will be African.
Trend is not destiny. These goals can be met with the right kind of
policy environment, nationally and internationally, and with
sufficient financing. The G8 should:
- Help create a financing framework for health care, that ensures
than no country with a serious health plan fails to achieve the
2015 goals through lack of resources. To guarantee
cost-effectiveness with regards to the purchase of drugs, the G8
must promote the full use of existing flexibility in the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) patents rules (TRIPS).
- Call on the World Bank to help governments create plans to put an
end to school fees, and to work with UNESCO to develop a Global
Initiative to finance basic education. The G7 should contribute
$4.5bn of the $9.1bn required to get every child into primary
school.
- Develop a debt relief programme that provides an immediate
reduction in debt servicing to 10% of government revenue. Agree to
100% cancellation of IMF and World Bank debt for HIPC countries
which have illustrated that they can use the resources to deliver
poverty reduction, but require additional debt relief to meet the
2015 development goals.
Rich and poor country governments at numerous international
meetings have promised to tackle these crises, and to meet these
goals. But promises have not been matched with resources. The
world's richest countries continue to fail the poorest. Aid levels
have declined to their lowest levels, at $53bn, and are still
declining. Between 1999 and 2000, G7 aid fell by almost 5%.
However, while the target level for aid has been agreed at 0.7% of
the economic wealth of a country (GNP), G7 countries only allocate
an average of 0.19%, while non-G7 donor countries give 0.46%.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, provide an equivalent
of four fifths of total US aid, yet have the combined population of
California. Sweden provides more aid than Canada; the Netherlands,
twice as much as Italy.
According to the UN [2], if countries from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries actually met
the 0.7% commitment, an additional $100bn could be provided to
developing countries - providing sufficient resources to achieve
the 2015 goals, finance global public goods, and provide sufficient
humanitarian relief.
While aid is vital, developing countries could do more to help
themselves. But in part, they are prevented by rich country
protectionism. Trade barriers deny the 49 least developed countries
(LDCs) some $2.5 billion a year in export revenues.
What is needed is a two way contract - those countries seriously
committed to achieving the 2015 gaols should be rewarded with the
additional resources they require to meet them. G8 governments have
the power in Genoa to lay the foundations to end this crisis. What
is required is the will. Sadly this is in short supply. Recent
efforts on health, education, debt relief and trade, show that
words have not been matched with action.
On the edge of failure: the Global HIV/AIDS and Health Fund
The horrific impact of HIV/AIDS coupled with killer diseases such
as malaria, TB, pneumonia, diarrhoea, and the wider collapse of
health care in many developing countries, has led to recent efforts
to galvanise a bold international response. The most recent
initiative has been the proposal to create a Global HIV/AIDS and
Health Fund, with the UN Secretary General calling for $7-10bn
annually to address HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria. Even with this Fund,
other health priorities such as maternal mortality, or child deaths
from chest infections, would not be addressed - the Fund should be
seen as a key step in developing a coherent a long-term response to
the health crisis in poor countries. The recent UN General Assembly
Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS reinforced this vision.
However, the Global HIV/AIDS and Health Fund stands at the edge of
failure. The Fund was meant to embody a new spirit of commitment by
rich countries to attack one of the root causes of global poverty:
the blight of sickness in developing countries which leaves almost
11 million people dead each year from preventable and treatable
disease. The 2001 Human Development Report starkly warns that the
international goal of reducing infant and maternal mortality is now
way off target. Ninety-three countries with almost two-thirds of
the world's people, are set to miss the target to reduce under-five
mortality by two-thirds. Without concerted action this goal will
transform into another empty promise.
After just four short months of discussion on the Fund by global
leaders, a vision of $10 billion of new investment each year in
health has been bargained down to an unambitious sum of $1-2
billion.
The G8 now have the final opportunity to breathe new life into the
vision by:
- Making major new aid commitments for health systems in
developing countries over the next 15 years. This will require an
international financing framework to ensure no country with an
adequate health plan cannot implement it through lack of resources.
This should include a Fund of $10 billion a year focused on
attacking the major killers of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.
- Ensuring the fund is cost-effective by promoting the full use of
the existing flexibility available in the WTO patent rules (TRIPS),
and the full use of generic medicines, including anti-retrovirals
where appropriate.
- Only using medicines from the pharmaceutical giants when they
have implemented a systematic tiered-pricing scheme delivering deep
discounts for developing countries.
If these conditions are not met, the Fund will fail. It is in
danger now of acting as little more than window dressing for the
G8, distracting attention away from the global campaign to change
the WTO patent rules which currently deny developing countries the
right to obtain the cheapest possible medicines for their citizens.
Education: laying the foundations for progress
One year has passed since the Okinawa summit, where the G8 promised
"that no government seriously committed to achieving education for
all will be thwarted in this achievement by lack of resources."
Very little has happened to turn this pledge into action. While
some of the G8 have increased aid to education, such as the UK and
Canada, there is still no global initiative to deliver the
resources required to get every child into primary school, and to
end once and for all the injustice of school fees. Schools cannot
be built on words.
What is required is a global initiative to identify the finance
gaps in all country education plans, and to mobilise the resources
required to fill those gaps. UNICEF's current estimates put the
finance gap for ensuring all children get a good quality and free
primary education, at around $9.1 billion a year. In global terms,
this is a small price to pay; it is equivalent to 4 days worth of
military spending, or equivalent to 7% of the tax rebate that US
tax-payers will receive this year following legislation to reduce
taxes. Meeting this need requires effort from donors and from
developing countries. Of this amount, $5.1bn should come from donor
support, with the remainder from the use of debt relief and
re-allocations of current spending in developing countries. In
comparison with the size of their economies, G7 contributions to
the $5.1bn be some $4.5bn, and would include, for example, $2bn
from the US and $1bn from Japan.
Recent research carried out by Oxfam in Tanzania, shows that the
country faces a finance gap of almost $300m in their education plan
over the next three years. One of Tanzania's aims is to end school
fees, so that poor children are not barred from school by cost. At
present some 2.5 million children are out of school. A financing
gap of this size will mean a failure to end school fees and improve
education quality. The G8 and other donors have pledged to fill
this gap, but at this time, only the UK government has agreed to do
so.
Oxfam urges the G8 to:
- Call on the World Bank to immediately work with poor countries
to put an end to school fees.
- Call on the World Bank to work with other education actors, such
as UNESCO and UNICEF, to develop a Global Initiative to provide the
resources necessary to end school fees, and provide education for
all, and to report on progress at the annual meetings this year.
- As part of this Global Initiative, to increase aid, whereby G7
countries must contribute to mobilising the $9.1bn required each
year to provide every child with a good primary education. They can
do their part by increasing aid to basic education to 8% of overall
aid - current spending is around 2%, providing $4.5bn as their
share of the $9.1bn, and increasing overall aid to 0.7% GNP.
Drop the debt
The debt relief promised at the Cologne G8 is failing to end the
debt crisis, with two thirds of countries which are now receiving
debt relief, spending more on debt than on health. A half spend
more on debt than on primary education and health care. The Heavily
Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative is failing to achieve what
it was created for, as Mr. Wolfensohn, the World Bank President
declared, "to eliminate debt as an obstacle to poverty reduction".
Tanzania is one of the HIPCs which, even on HIPC criteria, will
remain with unsustainable debt after receiving debt relief [3].
Even this position is based on exaggerated projections by IMF and
World Bank staff [4]. Such assumptions leave Tanzania in an
extremely precarious position, both in terms of the size of debt
relief, but also in terms of resources freed up for education and
other poverty reduction financing. This situation exists in many
other HIPCs.
That is why increased debt relief is required for Tanzania and
other HIPCs.
- reducing debt service in Tanzania to 10% of government revenue
would immediately release $50m a year.
- coupled with projected HIPC relief of $66m, this would fully
cover the yearly education financing gap of $100 million a year for
the next three years.
- This would put an end to school fees, and would ensure that the
2.5 million children who do not go to school now, finally can.
Oxfam calls on the G8 to:
- Undertake an urgent debt sustainability analysis of all
low-income countries, and widen the initiative to more countries
such as Haiti, Nigeria, Georgia or Bangladesh.
- Work towards the development of a new HIPC3 by the time of the
annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank that provides an
immediate reduction in debt servicing to 10% of revenue.
- Agree to 100% cancellation of IMF and World Bank debt for HIPC
countries which have illustrated that they can use the resources to
deliver poverty reduction, but require additional debt relief to
meet the 2015 development goals.
Endnotes
- Average annual income in the G7 countries is $25,000. 2.
Recommendations of the High-level Panel on Financing for
Development, UN, 26 June 2001. 3. Debt stock/exports at almost 180%
(compared to a HIPC target threshold of 150%). 4. GDP growth is
projected to double to 6% annually from 1989-99 averages, and
revenue projected to rise 15% by 2005 - both extremely unrealistic
projections.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by Africa
Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The
Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa). Africa
Action's information services provide accessible information and
analysis in order to promote U.S. and international policies
toward Africa that advance economic, political and social justice
and the full spectrum of human rights.
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