The G8 group of leading industrial nations looks set to break its promise to eradicate poverty in Africa because of poor performance by Italy and France, aid campaigners said on Wednesday.
The One campaign group, which fights poverty and disease in Africa, said that the G8 had only delivered one-third of the additional assistance it had promised to Africa by the end of next year.
In its annual report, which tracks yearly progress against the G8’s 2005 Gleneagles commitment to double aid to Africa by the end of next year, One projects that by December, the G8 will have delivered only about half of that promise. Italy and France are responsible for 80 percent of the shortfall.
“This leaves just one year, 2010, for the G8 to make up the rest,” the report said.
Italy has so far only provided 3 percent of the £5.09 billion (US$8.3 billion) in additional funding it had promised, and the campaign said that consultations with the Italian government revealed that it was planning to cut, not increase, aid in the future.
“Poor, sad Italy,” said Bob Geldof, who is an adviser to One. “That their economy is in such a disastrous meltdown condition that they must steal from the poor, rob the ill and snatch education from the minds of the young not only beggars the imagination, but must also surely beggar the soul of that most beautiful country. Shame on you. Your government disgraces you.”
Preliminary figures show that France cut aid to Africa last year and that budget plans for the next two years are not sufficient to remedy this year’s reductions, the report said.
Last year, France fell behind Germany for the first time in quantity of aid delivered to Africa.
“A promise to the poor is particularly sacred,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu said. “It is an act of grace and great leadership when all efforts are made to keep these pacts, and that is why those G8 countries who are leading the charge for the poorest deserve such credit. But we who praise must be prepared to censure where it is clearly deserved.”
The report said that the G8 could get back on track this year and next year, but only if it seized every opportunity, starting yesterday at the G8 development ministers’ meeting in Rome and today at the G8 finance ministers’ meeting in Lecce.
Some G8 countries made progress last year to fulfilling their commitments. The One campaign said the US, Canada and Japan were on track to meet or beat the relatively modest targets they set in Gleneagles, although it added that recent cutbacks by Canada to specific African countries such as Malawi and Rwanda were a cause for concern, especially as Canada would take over the G8 presidency next year.
The UK and Germany are making good progress towards their own targets, which were among the most ambitious within the G8. The UK is the first G8 country to have set a transparent timeline to reach the target of spending 0.7 percent of national income on overseas assistance by 2013.
Investments delivered so far have produced strong returns in Africa, the report said, including 34 million more children in school, an estimated 3 million people on life-saving AIDS treatment and death rates from malaria more than halved in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Zambia.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS