The G8 leaders met in Northern Ireland this summer for their usual round up of business and and no doubt a few holes of golf. But did their discussions send the ball of poverty into the sandtrap? Or did they stay on par and make good decisions which will change the course of history?
Like many others, I’m staggered by the injustice that lets nearly one billion people go to bed hungry every night. There is enough food for everyone in the world. And yet, 3 million
children die from malnutrition every year.
But let me tell you some good
news.
The IF campaign called for
· the government
to keep their 0.7% aid promise.
· aid
to support smallholder agriculture to give poor communities the power to feed
themselves.
· action
on tax so that developing countries can raise more of their own revenue and
multinational companies can’t dodge their taxes.
· action
on transparency so governments are accountable to their people for how they
spend their money.
· world
leaders keep their promise to find an additional $100 billion a year to help
poor countries adapt to climate change, on top of the aid budget.
Here is what happened:
Aid/Finance
·
Ahead of the UK budget thousands of campaigners called on the
Chancellor to meet the UK’s aid pledge, leading to a historic commitment to
spend 0.7% national income on aid. We first made this promise in 1970 and
this is the first year we’ll keep it.
·
Then, ahead of the G8, an additional £4.1 billion was
pledged by governments and other donors to tackle malnutrition which could save
the lives of almost 2 million children by 2020.
·
We also called for investment to help poor countries adapt to the
effects of climate change. Whilst the G8 repeated its promise to provide
finance, the didn’t say where this money will come from. It is vital that
progress is made at the UN climate talks in November.
·
The G8 however missed the chance to support the small-scale
farmers that feed a third of the world’s population.
Tax and Transparency
·
In the UK: In March hundreds of campaigners lobbied local MPs
and thousands wrote letters to George Osborne calling on him to reform UK tax
laws in the budget. These reforms would have helped developing countries
recover the taxes they are owed. But the Treasury didn’t heed our calls and so
there’s still work to do on this.
·
However later, in May, he couldn’t ignore our calls to tackle
the elephant in the room – our own tax havens – those in overseas territories
and crown dependencies. At the Trade, Transparency, and Tax summit in June, all
UK tax havens committed to sign a convention which would help improve
transparency.
·
We put huge pressure on the G8 to set out great ambition to
tackle tax dodging which they did at the Summit – with a
commitment to start exchanging tax information automatically for both rich and
poor countries - so it’s not secret any more - this is great, but we need a
clear timeline for when it will happen. The public argument for a
crackdown on tax dodging has been won, but the political battle remains. Future
G8s and G20s must urgently finish the job.
Land
·
IF campaigners ensured that the issue of land grabbing in
developing countries was discussed at the G8 and then acknowledged by world
leaders in the summit’s final declaration. World leaders, as well as UK
Department for International Development are keen to build on this and develop
land rights as a wider area of UK expertise. The key win in this area was
getting the issue on to the G8 agenda at all – this wouldn’t have happened
without the IF campaign.
·
Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, and
the Prime Minister also recognised the fact that biofuel production should not
undermine food security.
·
Far more is needed - The G8 needs to show it will deal with the
problem by regulating G8-based companies involved in land deals, and leading more
ambitious global efforts to tackle land grabs.
There's more to be done. Stay tuned for an update on the G20 and the next call to action.
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