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Not all believe these promises will be fulfilled in
the time frame they set, considering the
track-record of their past pledges.
“They have not been forthcoming in translating their
promises into action so far,” Abdirashid Dulane,
Ethiopia’s ambassador to Japan, told Fortune.
He is not alone. A number of aid agencies have been
castigating the club of the eight wealthy nations
for failing to live up to their commitments.
In their summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005,
the leaders of the group - most of which have
finished their terms - had pledged to double aid to
Africa to 50 billion dollars by 2010. Three years
down the road, several member nations are far behind
meeting their goals, falling short by a staggering
30 billion dollars, which according to Oxfam could
cost five million lives.
“I have made it absolutely clear to my colleagues
that we expect them to live up to the commitment
that have been made at Gleneagles,” Gordon Brown,
prime minister of the UK, told journalists in
Hokkaido.
The G8 – United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States - are
accustomed to criticisms, often marred by violent
demonstrations staged by those who oppose their
alleged failures. They are not new to global
challenges, too.
When Japan hosted the summit for the first time in
1979, they were close on the heels of the second oil
shock. In 2000, when the world leaders met on the
southern Japanese island of Okinawa, they had talked
about difficult problems such as funding to fight
epidemics. The challenges the leaders faced in their
summit last week - rising prices of energy and food
exacerbating hike in general price level of other
consumer goods - seemed to be even deeper.
Nowhere is this challenge more apparent than
Ethiopia. The country’s expenditure for the
procurement of oil has significantly increased due
to the commodity’s unpalatable price surge. For
instance, the 10.1 billion Br the country spent in
the first three quarters of the current budget year
is two billion Br higher than what was spent in the
entire year for the purchase of oil last year. This
has apparently played a pivotal role in driving
prices of basic goods higher - especially the urban
poor - to the limits of jumping meals.
The attempts of the federal government to keep the
inflation - that now hovers around 20pc - at a
single digit for over one year has also been futile
so far.
“In Ethiopia, some of the poorest can now buy only
40pc of the food they could do two years ago,” said
the world’s independent children’s charity, Save the
Children, last week at the summit.
These are among the 105 million people to be pushed
into poverty as a result of food price rises adding
up to the already hungry 854 million people, of
which 178 million are children under five, according
to the World Bank.
This was not an easy challenge for leaders the G8,
who expressed their concerns gathering at the resort
province of Hokkaido, for three days.
“We are deeply concerned that the steep rise in
global food prices, coupled with availability
problems, in a number of developing countries is
threatening global food security,” they said in a
joint statement after their deliberations last week
on Wednesday. “The negative impacts of this recent
trend could push millions more back into poverty,
rolling back progress made towards achieving the
Millennium Development Goals (MDG).”
The countries have, in January 2008, committed to
provide 10 billion dollars to support food aid,
nutrition interventions, social protection
activities and measures to increase agricultural
output in affected nations. Moreover, one of the
eight richest countries, Japan, has just over a
month ago promised to double its ODA to African
states by 2012, a promise made at the Fourth Tokyo
International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD
IV), held with 51 nations from Africa, including
Prime Minister Meles, labeling the current year as
“Africa Year”. With this bilateral meeting, Japan,
unlike the other seven, has pledged further to
strengthen its assistance, which earned it credit
among the G-8 leaders last week.
This view is shared by Ambassador Abdirashid.
Says he: “I appreciate that the Japanese government
has taken the lead in this matter. We want the other
G-8 countries to follow suit.”
At the beginning of the working sessions with
African leaders, including Prime Minister Meles,
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reported the
results of the TICAD IV that was held in May,
reiterating Japan’s pledge to double African aid by
2012.
Japan will also beef up assistance to increase
private-sector investment in Africa, emphasizing the
importance of economic growth in overcoming poverty
in Africa, Fukuda said. The richest Far East nation
has revealed a follow up and action plan documents
under the ‘Yokohama Declaration’ adopted in May this
year, to provide a roadmap for the support of
Africa’s growth and development, under the TICAD
process.
This was developed after African leaders noted that
past promises made at G8 summits often fell short
due to the lack of proper follow-up mechanisms.
On top of price hikes and Africa’s development, one
of the main discussion issues in this year’s summit
was climate change. Although the countries all
promised to cut global carbon emissions by 50pc in
2050, they have not yet satisfied environmentalists
who demand an even shorter interim targets with
specific time frames.
Japan was at the forefront of showcasing
environmentally friendly technologies during the
summit. Budgeting 60 billion Yen for the
organisation of the summit, the country has
exhibited cutting age technologies that are said to
be eco-friendly.
This, however, has not spared it from criticisms in
compensating the poor in Africa for its carbon
emissions as agreed in the Gleneagles summit.
“The country that emits greater carbon than all the
sub-Saharan African countries combined has not
simply done enough,” Antonio Hill, Oxfam
spokesperson, told Fortune. “It is a
scandal.”
Against the backdrop of such global challenges, the
chair country has however effectively hosted the
summit in its island with thick jungle trees.
From the total cost Japan incurred in organising the
summit, about 30 billion Yen was used by the
National Police Agency for patrolling the
venues, including taking counterterrorism measures,
and about 25.5 billion Yen was spent by the foreign
office.
The Ministry of Defense and Japan Coast Guard
budgeted around one billion Yen each for
transporting the leaders and patrolling sea areas
near the venue. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has
spent around nine billion Yen on preparing the
communications infrastructure between the summit
venue in Toyako and Rusutsu, where the international
media center is located. The Ministry budgeted
around five billion Yen for the media center, which
is constructed on a parking lot in a ski-resort and
has accommodated around 4,000 delegates from the
press and governments.
Japan has handed over the summit organisation to
Italy, which will be hosting next year’s G-8summit.
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