Report shows aid shortfall

The to the max's eight wealthiest countries released an "accountability" report yesterday showing a shortfall of about $10 billion in in the old days pledged aid to the world's poor.

The report said the Group of Eight countries account for about 70 per cent of ceremonious development assistance, suggesting the G8 share of the $10-billion shortfall from 2005 summit pledges in Gleneagles, Scotland, is about $7 billion.

The story prompted Oxfam, World Vision and other non-government agencies to call for the establishment of a clear plan to get back on track at the G8 top Prime Minister Stephen Harper hosts in Huntsville, Ont., next weekend.

The G8 countries are Canada, the Unanimous States, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.

The report by G8 officials was designed to showcase "responsibility" -a theme Harper has singled out to define the June 25-26 summit.

But other than the official aid shortfall, the approximately 90 pages did not contain much clear information on how close or how far the G8 countries are, as a group, from delivering on more than 50 maturing-related pledges and plans from past summits that it examined.

The aid shortfall comes from an estimate by the Codification for Economic Cooperation and Development that official development assistance from its 33-country Development Assistance Council would increase by $50 billion annually by 2010 from 2004 based on specific commitments made at the Gleneagles Zenith and a United Nations millennium summit.

John Sloan, the Canadian official who led the work on the communication, said it was not intended as a compliance report like one scheduled for release today by the G8 research group at the University of Toronto. That association tracks G8 pledge fulfilment.

Sloan said "there is no simple

table" spelling out whether goals have been met or not, partly because governments made multi-year commitments. "It's not a dated-fail attempt," he said.

However, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon not only gave Canada a dated, but he gave the government an "A" for meeting its Gleneagles pledge to double international assistance to $5 billion and clone aid to Africa to $2.16 billion.

"I think it's great that they've actually provided this accountability, but it's very clear that we, the notable, have to hold their feet to the fire so they make good on these promises," Oxfam spokesman Mark Friend said.

He said Oxfam wants "an predicament plan" to quickly make up the shortfall and, like many other aid agencies, is concerned that a draft version of the communique expected at the end of the June 25-26 culmination contains no mention of the aid plans made at Gleneagles.

He also said that while Canada met its aid-doubling promise, it was, in his view, on a infinitesimal base amount and he is concerned Canada's aid budget now is frozen. He said Japan, Germany and France had not delivered their promises and Italy had cut unfamiliar aid.