Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Merkel’s moment – G8 leaders face credibility test on Africa

With a week to go before the G8, ActionAid launches a new report, Merkel’s moment – The G8’s credibility test on Africa, questioning what they will really deliver for Africa. “In 2005 there was a massive public mandate world-wide calling for an end to poverty but the G8 are just defrauding the public and failing Africa,” said Collins Magalasi, Head of ActionAid’s South Africa Country Programme. Aid to Africa fell short by $8bn in 2006 despite the G8’s pledge at Gleneagles to increase aid. Germany, France and Italy were each responsible for around $2bn of that shortfall. It’s time for them to back their promises with money.

“The G8’s credibility is now in tatters. This is Merkel’s moment to galvanize the G8 and save the lives of 25 million Africans now living with HIV,” said Aditi Sharma, Head of ActionAid’s HIV AIDS campaign. To deliver on 2005 commitments, ActionAid urges G8 leaders to agree on:
* a funding plan to reverse the HIV and AIDS pandemic to close the estimated $8-10 billion gap a year together with a recognition that violence against women and girls is a key cause of the spread of HIV;
* annual targets to deliver on the 2005 promise of an extra $50 billion in aid per year by 2010.

In addition ActionAid is calling for:
* action to ensure that G8-based companies are held accountable for their activities overseas;
* action to cut G8 carbon emissions and next steps to agreement on a post-2012 international agreement ensuring that poor countries get the technology and resources they need to adapt.

Climate change: Stop harming and start helping, Oxfam tells G8 summit

G8 countries must act to keep global warming below 2° Celsius and pledge their share of $50bn to help poorest cope with impact. G8 countries owe around 80% of the $50bn or more needed each year by developing countries to adapt to the harmful effects of climate change, according to a new report published by Oxfam. Human-induced climate change is already causing harm to the world’s poorest people, who are the least responsible for emissions and least able to adapt to climatic shocks. “Developing countries cannot be expected to foot the bill for the impact of rich countries’ emissions,” said Celine Charveriat, head of Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign. “G8 countries face two obligations as they prepare for this year’s summit in Germany, to stop harming by cutting their emissions to keep global warming below 2° Celsius and to start helping poor countries to cope by paying their share of $50 billion per year in adaptation funds.”

Oxfam says the $50bn a year figure is a conservative estimate that will rise sharply if emissions are not cut drastically in order to keep global warming below 2° Celsius. It also says that the G8 must follow the lead of the Netherlands and ensure the money is over and above the UN agreed aid target of 0.7% of national income. The report, Adapting to Climate Change, estimates the share that each country should contribute towards financing adaptation. It ranks countries based on their responsibility for carbon emissions from 1992 (when virtually all of the world’s governments committed to fight climate change) up to 2003, and on their capability to pay, based on their position in the UN’s Human Development Index: United States, responsible for meeting nearly 44% of developing country adaptation costs; Japan, nearly 13%; Germany, more than 7%; UK, more than 5%; Italy, France, Canada, 4-5% each; Spain, Australia, Republic of Korea, 3% each.

“Justice demands that rich countries pay for the harm already being caused to those who are least responsible for the problem,” said Charveriat. “But it’s also crucial in building the trust between nations essential for the success of any truly global agreement to tackle climate change.”

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Guest Comment: Germany’s chance to overcome global economic apartheid

By Kumi Naidoo

When I was in Berlin last week something was playing on my mind. Wasn’t it here in 1884 that my continent Africa was carved up so randomly by European powers? At the Berlin Conference borders were drawn and communities split leaving irreversible fault lines throughout Africa. Was it to redress the errors of the past that I had been invited to join thirteen other civil society campaigners for a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel?

The German leader’s invitation expressed a wish to hear our concerns on poverty relief and climate change in advance of next month’s G8 summit on the Baltic coast. As a representative of the world’s biggest anti-poverty campaign, The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), I was there to put to her our demands for concrete outcomes and past promises to be honoured.

Two years ago, the G8 leaders met in Gleneagles in Scotland and renewed an old promise. They dusted down a commitment made back in the 70’s, to provide 0.7% of their GDP in development aid. The circle of eight made a commitment that, if met, would lead to millions of lives saved but to our disbelief they pushed the delivery date back. With a few exceptions, there has actually been a net decrease in aid from these countries since 2005. Citizens have shown time and time again through petitions, rallies, symbolic actions of solidarity, that they want this money given to the poor, yet their leaders respond tardily.

I put to the Chancellor that aid is not a panacea. Since the Marshall Plan to reconstruct war-torn Europe sixty years ago, we know that it works when properly managed and directed to the provision of essential services. It is their duty to ensure this. When we see how rapidly money is mobilised by these same governments when called up on to go to war then we, the people living in the poorest places on earth, cannot understand why a fraction of that money cannot be found now? The Chancellor appeared to nod her head in agreement.

My colleagues and I, called too for a better future for the poorest countries, a future in which neither aid nor debt relief would be necessary. I explained to Ms. Merkel that every day more and more African citizens are becoming aware of the unbalanced and unjust way world trade rules are set. They cannot believe European cows are subsidised to the tune of 2 Euros a day when half the people on the planet survive on less. They ask if this is some sort of global economic apartheid? If 6,000 white people were dying every day of HIV/Aids as is happening to the people of Africa, would they stand idly by? Given that what we are seeing in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world is a passive genocide or, if you like, a silent tsunami, I really do not know what to tell them.

Germany has an opportunity to change the course of history. It could be remembered not as the place where Africa’s woes began but where impoverished nations got the chance they needed to recover, once and for all. Just as Germany benefited from the Marshall plan, surely a global Marshall plan now makes sense. It would ensure future generations live in a world characterised by political, social, economic, gender and environmental justice. I left Ms. Merkel, I hope, still nodding her head in agreement.

Kumi Naidoo, South Africa, is a GCAP (Global Call to Action Against Poverty) representative and Secretary-General of CIVICUS (The World Alliance for Citizen Participation).

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Millions of lives at stake unless G8 acts on AIDS, warns ActionAid

A new report from Action Aid, Tackling political barriers to end AIDS, calls on governments to urgently deliver on their pledge to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care by 2010. “In country after country, progress is staggeringly slow and with just three years to go to 2010, the world is in danger of missing the target that gave hope to the 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS,“ said Aditi Sharma, ActionAid’s campaign coordinator. One of the easiest ways to prevent the virus spreading is giving drugs to HIV positive pregnant women - to prevent mother to child transmission. Yet Nigeria provides drugs to less than 1% of such women while India fares little better with 2%.

This week, as part of the Global AIDS Week (20-26 May) activists are expressing their anger about the number of lives lost and calling on G8 leaders and governments to provide access to treatment and tackle the deadly intersection of violence against women and HIV. In 2001, African governments promised to invest 15% of their expenditure on public health systems but most are far from this, with only Botswana achieving this by 2005. Furthermore, the world’s richest countries are refusing to act to fill the $8-10 billion annual AIDS funding gap.

ActionAid is an international anti-poverty agency working in over 40 countries, taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice together. For information about the Global AIDS Week (20-26 May) visit: www.globalaidsweek.org

Monday, May 21, 2007

Guest Comment: Day-to-day survival issues of farmers are absent from the negotiation table

By Wolfgang Sachs

G8 meetings almost routinely call for a development-friendly conclusion of the Doha Development Round at the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, the reform of agricultural trade rules at the center of negotiations do not bode well for the future of agriculture across the globe. Despite the critical importance of agriculture in global trade negotiations, it appears that neither the state nor the fate of global agriculture are of particular concern to trade diplomats. They rarely review the plight of peasants in India, the loss of potato varieties in the Andes, or the impact of global warming on rice yields in Vietnam. The day-to-day survival issues that loom heavily for farmers and their families are conspicuously absent from negotiation tables.

The spotlight is instead focused on issues such as import tariffs or export subsidies, access standards or safeguard mechanisms, most of them loaded with impenetrable complexities. This should come as no surprise, since trade policy treats agriculture as a business that produces commodities for sale against foreign currency. Negotiators use agricultural exports as a tool to boost their nation’s economic performance, but are strikingly unconcerned about the consequences of this strategy for farmers and ecosystems.

This tunnel vision is the deeper reason why deregulated trade in agriculture aggravates the global poverty crisis, deepening the desperation in particular of small farmers. As farming becomes integrated into global market relations, the ranks of the poor, marginalised and dispossessed increase around the world. Equally, free trade in agriculture aggravates the crisis of the biosphere, undermining local and global ecosystems. Unregulated long-distance trade of large volumes of crops and meat, apart from special cases like cocoa and coffee, tends to give a large boost to industrial farming in both Southern and Northern countries. But this creates a host of consequences: Industrial agriculture is a high consumer of land, water and fuel as well as a high emitter of chemicals and nitrates.

Dr. Wolfgang Sachs works with the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy. Among the numerous publications he co-authored is “Slow Trade - Sound Farming. A Multilateral Framework for Sustainable Global Markets in Agriculture“ (Misereor/Heinrich Böll Foundation: Aachen-Berlin 2007; www.ecofair-trade.org)

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

G8 countries seriously off track in meeting promises, says DATA Report 2007 / Call for emergency session at Heiligendamm

Africa advocacy organisation, DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), today released a report that shows aid is working in poor countries, but that most G8 nations are seriously off track in delivering on the historic promises to Africa they made in 2005. The DATA Report 2007 finds that the G8 increased aid by less than half the sum needed from 2004-2006 to meet their 2010 goals. Estimates of forthcoming aid flows in 2007 show that the G8 are planning to do only about one third of what's needed to get back on track. “The G8 are sleep walking into a crisis of credibility. I know the DATA report will feel like a cold shower, but I hope it will wake us all up. These are cold facts, but I know they will stir up some very hot arguments. These statistics are not just numbers on a page, they are people begging for their lives, for two pills a day, a mother begging to immunize her children, a child begging not to become a mother at age 12,” said Bono, U2 lead singer and DATA co-founder.

The DATA Report 2007 demonstrates that aid is effective in poor countries and improving the lives of millions of people. Because of assistance to global health programs, every day 1,450 Africans living with AIDS are put on life-saving medications. Due in part to debt cancellation and increased aid, 20 million more African children are going to school for the first time in their lives. This good news, however, only makes the bad news worse. The G8 are not increasing aid substantially enough to meet their commitments and are in serious danger of breaking these historic promises. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Africa’s first woman president, says in the foreword to the report, “Even as we have tangible proof that aid is working and that our governments are becoming more accountable, the G8’s commitment to Africa seems to be faltering.”

Today in Berlin, Bono, Bob Geldof, German musician and activist Herbert Grönemeyer and former Nigerian Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala called for an emergency session on the G8’s Africa commitments at the Summit in Heilegendamm next month. – DATA also looked at predicted funding for Africa for 2008. DATA’s analysis shows that next year the G8 are set to increase by approximately $1.7-2.3bn – about a third of the $6.2bn dollar increase they need to be on track to keep their commitments.

Earlier this month, other reports such as Oxfam's The World Is Still Waiting and CONCORD's Hold the Applause! came to similar conclusions.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Guest Comment: G8 – surprise us ... and remember your promises!

By Eveline Herfkens

As the G8 meets again, what can we expect? Well, for those working towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, I would say not much. At Gleneagles, G8 leaders promised a substantial increase in development assistance, and a doubling of aid to sub-Saharan Africa by 2010. But, two years down the line, total aid is decreasing again and a massive share of aid delivered in the past two years has actually been debt relief. Rather than taking a frank look at the facts and renewing their resolve to actually meet their promises on aid, G8 leaders at Heiligendamm are set to announce a couple of sectoral initiatives. But, these are likely to be little more than a damaging diversion. A diversion because they are small and are unlikely to be additional to existing promises. And damaging because sectoral initiatives often undermine efforts to improve the impact and effectiveness of aid.

We need to radically change the design and implementation of all of our aid by implementing the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness, as promised at Gleneagles. Evidence from the ground reminds us that there is an inherent tension between genuine local priority setting in developing countries, and the kind of single-issue funds and programmes that the G8 leaders are likely to announce. What is more, such small sectoral initiatives just add to the already increasing proliferation of aid programmes, donors and procedures, when we know this takes a devastating toll on the capacity of developing countries to manage their own development process.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, G8 countries need to take the lead in reviving the Doha round of trade negotiations and in ensuring a development-friendly outcome. It is only G8 countries, including G8 members of the European Union, that can ensure progress on this issue. And they promised at Gleneagles to do so.

So the scorecard for the Gleneagles commitments is pretty dismal reading. You might wonder how this can be, when the commitments were made with such fanfare. Well, for a start, there has been no willingness on the part of the G8 countries to monitor their own progress. Two years after the Gleneagles summit, Heiligendamm would be the ideal opportunity to do this, but there is no appetite for such a stock-take. Perhaps because leaders know that they aren’t delivering.

However, it is not too late. G8 leaders still have the opportunity to show great leadership. But, we don’t need new initiatives. All we need is for leaders to deliver what they already promised … at Gleneagles in 2005. A promise is a promise, and a promise to the world’s poor should not be taken lightly: their very future depends upon it.

Eveline Herfkens in the Executive Coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Campaign. She is the former Dutch Minister for International Development. The full statement has been published at: www.wdev.eu.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

G8 Labour Summit: Social rules on investment and trade, and effective regulation of hedge funds needed

At a Labour Summit taking place on 6 and 7 May, leaders from the G8 trade unions and Global Unions organisations have been calling on the G8 Labour Ministers and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to put the need for social rules around global trade and capital flows at the centre of their discussions. The union delegation, led by OECD-TUAC (Trade Union Advisory Council) and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Michael Sommer, President of the German DGB, was taking part in the G8 Labour Ministers' meeting in Dresden on 6-7 May and also meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The unions renewed their call for the G8 to establish an international regulatory task force on private equity.

In a statement released ahead of the Summit, Global Unions called upon G8 Labour Ministers to act upon a series of policy issues to build a proper social dimension of globalisation. On employment, it called upon ministers to ensure active growth-orientated economic policy management, decent minimum wage floors and balanced labour market "activation policies". On social protection, Ministers should affirm the right to affordable universal social security systems and work to build strong and well functioning labour inspectorates. Concerning corporate social responsibility, they should work for the integration of core labour standards across all international institutions. The unions will also maintain pressure on the G8 countries to do more to tackle the HIV-AIDS pandemic.

The Global Unions also brought to light the alarming consequences of private equity and hedge funds who have in a short period become owners of significant swathes of the economy and of employment across G8 economies. Ministers should consider policy responses so that the expanding activity of private equity buy-out investment does not jeopardise long term responsible business conduct and workers’ rights to collective bargaining, information, consultation and representation within the firm.

On 1 and 2 June, the ITUC, together with the DGB and its partners in the Decent Work Campaign, will be holding a "Youth Action for Decent Work" Conference in Berlin. The Conference will bring together young people from trade unions, NGOs and political movements to discuss the challenges young people face in the world of work. The Conference will formulate policy and action proposals to achieve decent work for youth, which will be presented to the German Government as G8 host. A meeting of the ITUC Youth Committee immediately after the Conference will build on these proposals in the development of the ITUC's own policies and action plans.

Monday, May 07, 2007

MDGs off track: 17.5 million children have died waiting for change

A briefing on the progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) released by Save the Children, UK, reveals that all MDGs are off course and the majority of goals are unlikely to be met by 2015. Since the G8 conference at Gleneagles nearly two years ago, 17.5 million children have died waiting for change to come. Where progress has been made, it is not universal: sub-Saharan Africa lags far behind the rest of the world. Ninety per cent of all child deaths occur in only 42 countries, 39 of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.

The briefing, Off Track and Running Out of Time, examines how close the world is to achieving the MDGs as the halfway point approaches. It focuses on MDGs that affect children: MDG 1 (eradicate extreme poverty and hunger); MDG 2 (achieve universal primary education); MDG 4 (reduce mortality rates by two thirds among children under five); and MDG 8 (develop a global partnership for development). Save the Children is calling on G8 countries this year to back developing countries to help build healthcare services and end the injustice of children and their families facing unpayable bills to go to the doctor, and to dramatically reform aid to make it work for poor countries. Aid should be predictable and untied, and all aid must be targeted at the world's poorest children.

Matt Phillips, Head of Campaigns at Save the Children, says, "It's an outrage that all the optimism of the new Millennium has turned into so little progress for children. There are rays of hope like Zambia making healthcare free and the massive public mandate for action to make poverty history. But to turn this round we need a lot more urgency and concrete action from world leaders - especially Europe and the G8 - to tackle extreme poverty."

Friday, May 04, 2007

Pope supports church leaders’ engagement for the world’s poor in run-up to G8 summit

A group of prelates were received today by the pope as part of a catholic campaign to ensure that development remains high on the agenda of the G8 Summit in Germany this June. Pope Benedict XVI welcomed their engagement for the world’s poor and for social justice world-wide. The pope encouraged them to “continue campaigning for the welfare of all human beings all over the world”. Cardinal Rodriguez said, “The Pope urged the German Chancellor Merkel to put poverty at the heart of the 2007 G8 summit, and we welcome this initiative. We cannot accept that poor people perish every day because they lack shelter, basic medicines and safe drinking water. The world does have the means to eliminate poverty.”

Over 50.000 citizens across the world have supported the Make Aid Work campaign so far. Paul Chitnis, President of the catholic alliance CIDSE, said, “We do not only face global warming caused by climate change, we also face global warming caused by the growing anger of the dispossessed. G8 leaders have to be aware that our global situation needs urgent and adequate policy responses”. The delegation is part of the international campaign ‘Make Aid Work. The World Can’t Wait’, co-ordinated by CIDSE and Caritas Internationalis. The campaign calls on governments in rich and poor countries to ensure development aid makes a difference for the poor. Earlier this week, the delegation met UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, German President Horst Köhler and Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minster Romano Prodi of Italy.

In a statement, the delegation expressed their disappointment by the lack of progress on the part of the G8 countries. They said that they expect world leaders to assume responsibility for promoting human development and global solidarity. They explicitly called for continued efforts to resolve the longstanding crisis of sovereign debt in a sustainable and just way; for coordinated measures against corruption; and for promises to increase development aid to be kept.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Civil G8 (4): G8 and NGOs in harmony? The dialogue as a dilemma

At the concluding round table of G8-Dialogue with civil society, Masahuru Kohno, deputy foreign minister and G8-sherpa from Japan, discoursed about the world. Would his prime minister change his national motto “for a beautiful country” to the summit motto “for a beautiful world”, when the summit comes to Hokkaido next year? The NGO representatives laughed but, they have to be very careful not to get caught in a dilemma which could be described as follows: the greater and the more detailed their demands and expectations addressed to the G8, the greater the impression they create that the Big 8 will fix everything in the “Brave New World”. Why, for example, must the G8 regularly deal with biodiversity (as demanded by the vice president of Deutsche Naturschutzring, Manfred Niekisch), when there are established bodies and the Conference of the Parties to the Biodiversity Convention dealing with this issue?

In the final round of the Civil G8 Dialogue the 20 NGO representatives—a representative of the German Federation of Industry (BDI) among them—who were allowed to share the table with the sherpas, again set off a small fireworks display of demands. But the German sherpa Bernd Pfaffenbach acted as if he could see no contradiction between the positions of Martin Khor from Third World Network (or even trade union representative Jürgen Eckl) and Claudia Wörmann of the BDI, who basically presented the demands of the G8 Business Summit the day before. Michael Frein of the Protestant Church Development Service (EED) restored clarity by reminding everyone that the Doha Round can hardly be called “a development round” from the NGO point of view, even if Pfaffenbach continues to depict it as such.

Civil G8 (3): Climate change on top of the agenda

Climate protection is developing to what may well be the mega-issue at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. Karsten Zach, from the German environment ministry, informed the participants that the federal government pursued five negotiating targets in the preparations for Heiligendamm. They want the summit to (1) adopt a long-term vision for climate protection; (2) take initiatives for clear incentive systems for the markets; (3) favour technologies as well as energy efficiency, renewable energy and also “clean” coal; (4) reduce the existing incentives to predatory logging and finally, (5) complete a clear negotiation plan for the post-Kyoto period (starting in 2008 and concluding in 2009).

The subsequent discussion brought little that was new into the debate as to whether CO2 emissions should be reduced 20% by 2020 (as adopted by the EU) or 30% (like the NGOs demand). Angelika Zahrnt of BUND, the German section of Friends of the Earth, remarked critically that the German government’s climate policy gets more progressive in formulation the greater the distance of the conference location to Berlin. There was an obvious tendency to choose “easy solutions” which were in fact not solutions at all. Prominent examples are the re-discovery of coal as “clean coal” and the fact that biomass is now considered a priority. It was interesting that Hans Verlome from WWF doubted that the German government's attempt to involve China in climate policy through the O5 process was the right approach. Whoever wants to keep China from losing patience with Western pressure has to recognise China’s enormous progress in environmental protection. To support this development, the G8 countries need to make greater and more convincing offers of technology cooperation.

German business, says Michael Antony of the Allianz Group, has been too slow in developing approaches to turn climate protection into a “business case”. Nowhere are the particularly economic challenges of climate change more apparent than in the insurance industry. Antony, who was a major contributor to Allianz’s new climate strategy, would expect the G8 summit to agree on a reduction of 20% by 2020 and 60-80% by 2050 and a clear negotiating plan for post-Kyoto. Investors needed a clear framework since uncertainty is worse than regulation.

Civil G8 (2): The Dialogue as a civil society platform

For two days the Beethoven Hall in Bonn was transformed into a common boat carrying dialogue between the German G8 presidency and numerous NGOs from G8 countries as well as emerging and developing countries. As expected, the NGO spokespersons differed gradually as to the range of their demands. Uli Post (VENRO) criticised that the German G8 agenda clearly lacked an implementation plan for the promises made at Gleneagles two years ago. Moreover the biodiversity issue was not even mentioned. Jürgen Maier (Forum Umwelt & Entwicklung) raved about a global deal between the G8 and O5 (‘outreach’ countries: Brazil, India, South Africa, Mexico and China) on climate protection and energy policy, but found fault with the apparent fact that no one can say to this day how the O5 will benefit from it. Thomas Münchmeyer from Greenpeace wants the summit to set a CO2 reduction target of 30% by 2020, deceleration of global warming to less than 2 °C and a clear negotiating brief for the climate conference in Bali at year's end. Thus the G8 must – if necessary – live without a consensus and act without the USA.

However, Peter Wahl of Attac was less optimistic. He forecast that the Heiligendamm summit will deliver the most meagre results of any G8 summit in years. Not only because the old men like Bush, Blair and Chirac will not be there or only attend as lame ducks; but with the expansion of the summit to G8 plus O5 the contradictions are greater than ever before. Since Russia’s entry, the club’s ability to deliver significant results has been continuously diminished.

Civil G8 (1): Business in Berlin – NGOs in Bonn: Two worlds apart

Every event was unique: It was the first G8 Business Summit, and it was the first debate between a wide range of civil society organisations (CSOs) and the sherpas of all G8 countries which took place last week in Berlin and Bonn. But a closer look at the two events reveals a deep rift between the two. In Bonn Martin Khor of the Third World Network deplored that trade ministers have ceased to make policy in the interest of their people and only represent the interests of special lobbies. The first G8 Business Summit clearly showed that this charge is not too far-fetched. In a G8 Joint Business Declaration the eight industry associations of the G8 countries demanded that the summit in Heiligendamm ought to push harder among other things for “investment freedom”, better innovation and patent protection and more favourable conditions for private investment in Africa.

German chancellor Angela Merkel promised industry representatives in turn that she would “try to raise these ideas”. However these very ideas have long been central elements of the German G8 agenda. This raises once again that old, unanswerable question, which came first – the chicken or the egg.

In pleasant contrast to the consensus shared by big government and big capital in Berlin, different opinions were openly discussed at the Civil G8 Dialogue. Khor rebutted the Western dogma that development functions better the stronger innovation is protected by patent law. While in Berlin an urgent completion of the Doha Round was demanded mantra-like, in Bonn Khor underlined that this would simply not be a fair deal for the Third World given present offers. Ronny Hall from Friends of the Earth International pointed out that there are two, strictly separated global governance systems in the world: here the United Nations system and there the economic institutions with the WTO as centrepiece. So far, the G8 have always managed to ensure that the latter dominates the former.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Guest Comment: Four points for the G8 to act on finance

By Martin Khor

1. Curb speculation. The world is on the brink of a new global financial crisis. There has been not action by the G8 to regulate the speculative flow of funds, and new dangerous forms of speculation, carried out by hedge funds and through derivatives etc, have emerged. The G8 must now act to control hedge funds and derivatives, and regulate the flows of hot money and speculative funds. Hedge funds should not removed from the agenda.

2. Fundamental changes to the Bretton Woods institutions should be initiated. The IMF should not involved in policy-based lending to developing countries. It has a very bad record with the adverse effects of its conditionalities. The World Bank should also be reformed by lending only for projects with sustainable development criteria for its project loans. The governance system of both institutions must be fundamentally reformed, so that the developing countries have fair voice and representation. The September 2006 measure relating to the IMF is clearly insufficient and in some ways detrimental.

3. Deepen and widen debt cancellation. The move to cancel debts of some developing countries should continue. The G8 must not lose momentum on debt relief and cancellation. Debt cancellation must be extended to more countries including middle-income countries. Also, a mechanism for debt restructuring and rescheduling should be set up for countries facing debt-repayment problems, in which these countries can suspend their debt payment until a debt rescheduling scheme is worked out.

4. Aid should be reformed to really serve development needs, and the volume of aid should increase, as promised in previous G8 summits but not realised. Aid volume has instead declined in the past year. There should be an increase in aid for example for R and D and innovation for medicines for diseases that especially affect developing countries. Such R and D funds should be linked to medicines that will not be patented as the funding comes from the public sector. The medicine prices can be controlled to a low level so that they are accessible to the poor.

Martin Khor is director of the Third World Network, Malaysia. This comment is taken from his presentation to the Civil G8 Dialogue (25-26 April) in Bonn. We will report.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Caritas Internationalis general assembly to parallel G8 summit

The 18th general assembly of Caritas Internationalis meeting in Rome from 3-9 June will parallel the annual Group of Eight summit in Germany, but will tell a different tale, said the Catholic aid organisation's secretary-general, Duncan MacLaren. "The Caritas general assembly and the G8 will be more than a tale of two summits, they will be a tale of two worlds. On one hand, you have the leaders representing the interests of the world's rich countries with a combined gross domestic product of over $30 trillion. On the other hand, you have representatives of civil society working for the world's 3 billion people living on less than $1 a day."

MacLaren said that "G8 leaders must live up to their promises on aid." He added that "there is backsliding with the commitments made" two years ago at the summit held in Gleneagles, Scotland. "Caritas wants G-8 countries to deliver on promises to increase aid to 0.7% of national income, and to ensure that aid is used effectively to end poverty. Millions of the poor will suffer as a consequence of these broken promises," he added. – Keynote speakers for the Caritas meeting will include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai and president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Martino.

Meanwhile, catholic church leaders from some of the world’s poorest countries are touring European capitals this week to call on the world’s richest countries to keep promises on aid at the next G8 summit. The tour is part of an international catholic campaign, Make Aid Work. The World Can't Wait, calling on G8 governments to increase aid and ensure it effectively targets poverty. The delegates include Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegulcigapa, Honduras, Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi, India, and Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo of Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. They met British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on Monday, and will meet the German President Horst Köhler in Berlin on Wednesday, and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Thursday. The tour will end with a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on Friday.

Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja said, “The G8 governments have no mandate for global governance, yet their decisions affect millions of poor people. They have a responsibility to ensure that their policies guide the world towards human and environmental development.” The campaign is organised by the two international networks of Catholic development organisations - CIDSE and Caritas Internationalis.

Missed Woodstock? Don’t miss Rostock! Grönemeyer, Bono, and others at P8 summit concert

“Music & Messages” will be the motto of a major cultural event to be held in Rostock, Germany, on 7 June 2007, shadowing the G8 summit in Heiligendamm. The campaign “Deine Stimme gegen Armut” (“Your Voice against Poverty”) is expecting thousands of participants in the grounds of the International Horticultural Exhibition (“IGA-Park”) to a peaceful rally against poverty and calling on the rich industrialised nations for more political engagement for the development. So far, Herbert Grönemeyer, Bono (photo), Die Fantastischen Vier, Die Toten Hosen, Seeed, Silbermond, 2Raumwohnung and Sportfreunde Stiller have confirmed their coming. Musical ambassadors and speakers from a selection of eight developing countries representing the world’s poorest countries as the “P8” (Poor 8) will join them. In addition, short films will report about the daily life in these countries.

“It’s up to us to do something about social imbalance in the world now. We are able to, and we will be heard because we are loud enough,” says Herbert Grönemeyer. U2 singer Bono, already an activist for years, notes: “I missed Woodstock, and now I’m not going to miss Rostock! If the G8 heads think that they can ignore this campaign, they are making a very big mistake.”



The artists are co-operating with the Association of German Development Non-Governmental Organisations (VENRO) in the campaign Deine Stimme gegen Armut (“Your Voice against Poverty”; see German video spot above). The tickets for the event include only the advance booking fee and will cost just €2.50. They will be available at Europe’s leading ticket portals www.eventim.de and www.getgo.de and at all of the usual Eventim booking offices from 2 May on.