Social Watch’s Basic Capability Index: G8 fails to meet responsibility for MDGs

According to the recent Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) published by Social Watch, at the current rate of progress universal access to a minimum set of social services will only be achieved in 2108 in Sub-Saharan Africa, a delay of almost a century with regards to the target date of 2015 set by the so-called Millennium Development Goals. Rich countries committed themselves to do their part in creating an enabling global economy and assisting poor countries for it to happen.

Unless the pace of progress is substantially speeded up, by 2015 the average level of social development in most of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will only have advanced to a very low level. All other regions of the world, except for Europe and North America, will still be far from achieving an acceptable level of social development.

Social Watch, an international network of more than 400 civil society organizations, launched this index on poverty and deprivation in coincidence with the G8 summit, which will bring together the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries in Heiligendamm from 6 to 8 June. “The world’s wealthiest countries have made very little progress in fulfilling their side of the agreement and allowing a majority of the world population to work their way out of poverty,” stressed Social Watch co-ordinator Roberto Bissio.

Most developing countries, including the poorest among them, continue to receive minimal foreign aid while struggling under the burden of foreign debt and confronting unfair trade conditions that keep them from rising out of poverty. In 2002, the developed nations reaffirmed the pledge they had made in 1970 to allocate 0.7% of their national income to official development aid (ODA). Nevertheless, current ODA spending falls far below this level. None of the G8 countries has fulfilled this commitment to date. The United States devotes 0.17% of its income to aiding developing countries, while Italy allocates 0.2%, Japan 0.25%, Canada 0.3%, Germany 0.36%, France 0.47% and the United Kingdom 0.52%.

The Social Watch figures show that half of the world’s countries score within the low, very low or critical categories of the basic capabilities index, and are unable to ensure coverage of minimum essential needs (health, education an others) for most of their population. The BCI is used to evaluate and compare situations of poverty at a national, provincial and local level, based on three basic indicators: the percentage of children who successfully complete the fifth grade, child mortality under five years of age, and the percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel.

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.

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."