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.

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.

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.

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.

Draft G8 Declaration for Heiligendamm leaked: an agenda against the South

A first internal draft of a declaration for the coming G8 summit has been leaked. The Washington-based NGO Oil Change International published the 21-page text on its website. The document entitled Growth and Responsibility in the Global Economy obviously comprises the economic policy part of the planned summit document. There is nothing on the implementation of promises made at the G8 summit at Gleneagles and the Africa policy announced as the second focus of the German G8 agenda. The individual chapters deal with the issues of global imbalance, international investment, innovation protection, climate change and energy efficiency as well as raw materials security and transparency.

Above all the chapters on “investment freedom, investment environment and social responsibility” and “promoting innovation—protecting innovation” show that the German government intends to use the summit to impose an anti-South agenda. Thus it wants to mobilise against the emerging economies for their alleged “new investment protectionism” and further strengthen patent law and intellectual property instruments against product piracy. However, both the political control of foreign investment (which can include unequal treatment) and the imitation of products and production processes were always first order development factors.