Friday 11 October 2013

A nice little round of golf

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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