DATA Report 2009

Since the launch of the 2009 DATA Report in June, we’ve posted several reports cards on individual G8 countries’ progress. But they aren’t the only ones who made important pledges to Africa at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. The European Union did, too—so here’s a closer look at how they’re progressing toward their targets.

Based on their commitments (made in 2005 and beyond), the EU pledged to collectively increase official development assistance (ODA) to Africa from approximately $17 billion (in U.S. dollars) in 2004 to $40 billion by 2010. And while global official development assistance (ODA) increased significantly in 2007-2008, very little of that increase went to Africa. This means that the EU have achieved only 21% of their promised increases to date, making them off track to meet their 2010 target.

A closer look at individual country performances reveals that some nations are delivering more than others. In 2008, several donors increased aid to Africa by more than 10%–and using current budget data to predict spending in 2009, ONE estimates that numerous nations (including Germany, Spain, Denmark and the UK) will continue this increase in the next budget cycle. But others—including Ireland, Italy and Greece—are forecasting disappointing cuts in aid.

The EU must stand as a leader and protect the world’s poorest from the impact of rising food prices, climate change and the global economic crisis. To do this, the EU must ensure that promised 2010 aid is actually delivered, that member states stick to their commitment of setting annual timetables to reach 0.7% ODA/GNI, and that bold new pledges to Africa continue to be made in 2010 and beyond.

-Kara Arsenault

It’s been almost a month since the launch of the 2009 DATA Report in London. We’ve already filled you in on the report’s key findings and we recently offered a detailed look at Canada’s performance (the host of next year’s G8). Today, we take a peek at whether the U.S. is keeping their word to Africa.

In 2008, U.S. official development assistance (ODA) to Africa rose by 26%, making it solidly on track to fulfill its 2010 promise of doubling aid to the continent (by the end of 2008, the U.S. had delivered $7.75 billion, or 70% of the pledged $8.8 billion). Using current budget data to predict spending in 2009, ONE estimates that the U.S. is likely to increase aid to Africa by $1.25 billion in 2009, meaning that it would likely exceed its target a year early. And while this increase will include additional funding for global health programs, agriculture and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), in other key areas the U.S. still lags behind. Greater funding is needed for education, water and sanitation, and the U.S ranks second to last in terms of ODA effectiveness.

Nearly six months into the new Obama administration, the U.S. appears committed to continuing—even strengthening—its vital partnership with Africa. As a step towards fulfilling his promise to double foreign assistance by 2015, the President requested a substantial increase to the 2010 international affairs budget, with 75% directed toward development and poverty-fighting programs. As he now prepares to attend his first G8 Summit in Italy, we hope that President Obama will call on his G8 partners to step up and honor their own pledges to Africa, with a clear timetable set for delivery. We also hope that the President will reconfirm his earlier G20 pledge to increase funding for agricultural development to over $1 billion—and that Congress will soon approve the request. We can’t imagine a more important time to do so.

Keep your eyes peeled for more country report cards in the coming days.

-Kara Arsenault

ONE is gearing up for this week’s G8 Summit in Italy. While we are encouraged that development issues and Africa will once again be discussed at this year’s summit, we are concerned that the G8 has only one year to meet its historical Gleneagles 2005 commitments and are seriously behind. The G8 have so far only delivered one third of the aid they promised to Africa (See ONE’s 2009 DATA report for more details). In particular, Italy, the host of this year’s G8, has only delivered three percent of its promises over the past four years. With such dismal record on its promises to Africa, one might ask: does Italy have the credibility to lead the G8?

ONE is urging the G8 leaders, Italy in particular, to step up to the promises it made four years ago. ONE will be calling on all G8 nations to produce clear plans and time tables for how they will make up the shortfalls with serious down payments to get back on track.

2010 will be a turning point for Africa. ONE also hopes that the G8 will discuss plans for post-Gleneagles commitments and agree to establish a strategy for 2010-2015 to drive forward progress towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals in partnership with African governments, civil society and the private sector at next year’s summit in Canada.

-Mikiko Imai

According to this year’s DATA Report, while the G8 are collectively failing to follow through on their 2005 Gleneagles promises to Africa, three countries are successfully meeting or beating their targets. One of the surprising front-runners in this group is Canada. At Gleneagles, Canada pledged to double its development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa: $1.5 billion by the end of 2008. It has not only met this target, but exceeded it, directing $1.9 billion to Africa by the end of last year. This means that it has delivered 206% of increases promised by 2010.

Canada remains a strong supporter of basic education, health, and more recently agriculture and food security. Canada has also emerged as a new leader on the aid effectiveness front, promising to untie all development assistance by 2012–2013.

Canada should be applauded for meeting its commitment to Africa, particularly in a year where countries like Italy and France are threatening to drag down the entire G8’s efforts. Accountability is more important than ever in an increasingly unpredictable financial climate, which has left the world’s poorest countries struggling maintain recent gains in the reduction of poverty and disease. Canada should use its good performance as leverage at the upcoming G8 in Italy to push the group to develop a recovery plan for countries who are behind to get back on track towards Gleneagles.

As host of the G8 Summit in 2010, Canada must also look ahead to create bold, new aid, trade and investment commitments to Africa. Despite already meeting its target, Canada has yet to indicate any increased spending plans to Africa over the next few years. While the Canadian government has said that its new aid strategy—which focuses the majority of bilateral aid on 20 focus countries (seven of which are in Africa)—does not indicate a shift, it still hasn’t shared detailed plans to prove this. These plans should include a clear timetable for delivery and a roadmap for increasing development assistance to reach 0.7% of GNI within ten years.

Over the past few years, Canada has worked hard to strengthen the G8’s relationship with Africa. It was instrumental in launching the historic 2005 Gleneagles commitment, and in 2009, it hosted the Kananaksis summit (where the G8 announced its support for the newly-formed NEPAD). To build upon this leadership, Prime Minister Stephen Harper should announce that when Canada hosts the G8 Summit in 2010, Africa and the Millennium Development Goals will be at the heart of their agenda. What better way to demonstrate Canada’s clear commitment to Africa’s future.

-Nora Coghlan

The Huffington Post today features an article from Bob Geldof on the DATA Report launch and key findings. In the piece, Geldof has strong words for Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi stating, “Let us watch to see if the Italian Prime Minister understands his global responsibility. Let us see if Italy keeps faith with the world’s poor.”

Key excerpts below, full piece here

Poverty must go. Without removing it, we will not have a stable world. The global financial architecture collapsed and now must be rebuilt. One of the reasons this was a failure of the system rather than simply within it was because 50% of the planet, those who live on less than $2 per day, were excluded from it. You cannot live on less than $2 a day. What is more, by excluding them from the world economy, we excluded their creativity, their dynamism, their intellect, their ideas and their productivity. We did great damage to ourselves in doing so.

We mustn’t make the same mistake again as we rebuild a newer world economy. We must include the peripheral peoples in the marginal economies, we must include Africa and Africans if only so that they can buy our stuff and we can buy theirs. And then, as happens anywhere else, the aid question disappears.

We are not there yet. So, for now, aid stabilizes the poor of this world at a base level. It manages sometimes to get to some people so that they get to stay alive with a little bit of food, so they get to stay alive with a little bit of medicine, and so they get a little bit of education. Then with a coherent state they can begin to get going. And to help with that, we look primarily to the G7 — the world’s richest economies, the countries of plenty.

-Chris Scott

Yesterday, as you know, ONE launched the 2009 DATA Report in London and CNN was there to cover the event. They sat down with panelist Bill Gates to discuss the Report and the state of global development this year.

Check it out:

You can read more from CNN here.

-Chris Scott

ONE members from all around the world submitted questions for the launch of ONE’s 2009 DATA Report today. These were voted on by members earlier this week to decide which would be posed to the panel this morning. The winning question came from ONE member Simon Sentamu in Tanzania who asked:

Why should we Africans expect Pres. Sarkorzy, Chancellor Merkel and PM Berlusconi to live up to their 2005 promises and Gleneagles commitments while many of our leaders are not living up to their promises to eliminate grand corruption nor are they meeting their commitments to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)?

And this morning in London, the DATA Report launch panel answered:

-Weldon Kennedy

Thanks to the handy work of our Weldon and Kimberly, we now have videos from this morning’s launch of the ONE DATA Report 2009 in London.

Here’s a 6 minute highlight reel of all of the speakers.

[Panelists: Bill Gates, co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof anti-poverty activist and ONE adviser, Dr. Francoise Ndayishimiye, Senior Gender Adviser, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Arunma Oteh, Vice President for Corporate Services, African Development Bank, Archbishop Desmund Tutu, ONE's International Patron and Jamie Drummond, ONE's Executive Director]

And below, a video of the whole event.

In 2005 at the Gleneagles Summit, the G8 made a host of historic promises to Africa, including doubling development assistance by 2010, promoting increased trade and investment, cancelling debt, improving health, and achieving universal primary education by 2015.

Today in London, ONE released the 2009 DATA Report, its annual in-depth look at how the G8 are progressing towards these targets. This year’s report is divided into four parts: aid quality and quantity, trade and investment, debt cancellation and investing in people (a look at the progress made in the health, education, agriculture and water and sanitation sectors). What does this year’s report reveal? Here’s a look at a few key findings.

Development Assistance

• By 2008, the G8 had delivered only a third of their commitment—just $7 billion of the total $21.5 billion increases promised to Africa by 2010. Some countries fared better than others: the US, Canada and Japan are meeting or beating modest targets; Germany and the UK are striving to meet their more ambitious commitments. France’s delivery is disappointing, and Italy—the host of the upcoming G8 Summit—has utterly failed to make progress on its promised aid.
• Looking ahead to 2009, ONE estimates that the G8 will have delivered only a half of their commitment. 80% of the 2009 shortfall will be due to France and Italy. That means that in 2010, the G8 must deliver the entire other half to reach their target.
• In 2008, the G8 met in Accra to review progress on improving aid effectiveness. While the forum helped accelerate progress towards achieving better aid, more must be done to reach the 2010 goals.

Debt

• The steps taken by the G8 since 2005 have brought them close to fulfilling their commitments on debt. At the end of 2008, Africa had been relieved of $92.8 billion of its debt obligations.
• But the global financial crisis threatens to overturn these advances. Among the 20 African countries that reached ‘completion point’ in the debt cancellation process, 11 now face a risk of debt distress through reaccumulation of debt.

Trade

• The G8 are not living up to their promise to “make trade work for Africa.” Despite an increase in exports, Africa accounts for only 3.5% of global trade—the lowest share of any region in the world.
• Making trade work for Africa will require a combination of: increased access to developed country markets; reduced agricultural subsidies; improved aid for trade; stronger regional integration; and more policy space.

Investing in People: Health, Education, Agriculture and Water

• When the G8 made their 2005 commitment to double ODA to Africa by 2010, they also promised to make sure that this aid would meet specific development outcomes in health, education, water and agriculture.
• Progress has been made on some of these goals, including getting children into primary school, supporting AIDS treatment for those who need it, and distributing bed nets to protect mothers and children from malaria.
• Progress towards other outcomes has been rather slow, such as increasing access to improved drinking water and sanitation and increasing agricultural productivity. Greater details on all of these investments can be found in the full DATA Report.

The findings above are just a small sampling of the information you’ll find in the 2009 DATA Report. To view the full report online, please click here.

-Kara Arsenault

The 2009 edition of the DATA Report, ONE’s annual assessment of the G8’s progress on their commitments to global development, is  launching this morning in London at a special kick-off event featuring Bill Gates, co-Chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof, anti-poverty activist and ONE principal, Dr Francoise Ndayishimiye, of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria; Arunma Oteh, of the African Development Bank, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Visit the DATA Report website to watch the event live beginning at 10:30a.m. GMT.

-Aaron Banks