Global Policy Forum

By Stephen Castle

World leaders returned from a riot-torn G8 summit in Genoa to find their stage-managed initiatives to help combat third world debt, poverty and disease derided by almost all the key campaigners.

Despite the launch of a fund to tackle AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and a new African partnership scheme hailed by Tony Blair as the continent's "Marshall Plan", non governmental organisations remained deeply unimpressed.

Aids

The leaders' main initiative was a $1.3bn (£0.9bn) global health fund designed to help make "a quantum leap in the fight against infectious diseases and to break the vicious cycle between disease and poverty". But pressure groups are angry that the fund begins with little more than one-tenth of the $10bn which the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, demanded. Worse, the non-governmental organisations say that most money pledged by governments has simply been diverted from other parts of overseas aid budgets.

Although the UK's contribution of $200m sounds generous, in fact the cash was diverted from other parts of the government's development budget and will be spread over five years.

"This is like robbing Peter to pay Paul," said War on Want's senior campaigner, Steve Tibbett, arguing that "one-off funds and initiatives don't address the underlying causes of poverty. The global health fund is simply not big enough to make a real impact, and more importantly it's not new money".

Initiative

G8 leaders agreed to an ambitious new partnership with African states in time for next year's G8 meeting in Canada in 2002. By then the world's richest countries will have a plan to create links around eight African states which are committed to reform.

The G8 proposal was based on a joint paper produced by South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria and African leaders including South Africa's Thabo Mbeki were, for the first time, invited to attend a G8 at Genoa. Mr Blair, who has backed the initiative described it as the summit's "lasting legacy" – a "kind of Marshall Plan for the future".

But one key difference is obvious: the Marshall Plan which levered Europe out of economic devastation after the Second World War was accompanied by a massive act of American generosity. It is early days but, so far, not one cent has been pledged to the Africa partnership.

Lucy Matthew, spokeswoman for the Drop the Debt organisation argued: "African leaders have worked hard on these plans and I don't think the G8 should be trying to take the credit.

"Next year we will see if the G8 responds with bold and adequate support for it".

Cafod, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development said the G8 "failed in Genoa to heed the international calls for a new deal on debt relief".

Oxfam added that the world's wealthiest nations "did nothing meaningful on debt relief and announced a global AIDS fund that still needs much more resources and does nothing about the cost of drugs in poor countries. It is unacceptable that these promises remain unmet".

Debt

The Genoa communiqué promised to "look to countries affected by conflict to turn away from violence. When they do we confirm that we will strengthen our efforts to help them take the measures needed to receive debt relief". In particular the G8 reaffirmed its commitment to the initiative to help Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. But aid organisations are increasingly critical of the programme, which they see as too slow and insufficiently generous, and are worried that the latest position implies that that third world nations which are involved in conflicts will not be eligible for help.

Two years ago at Cologne the G8 agreed on a target for the cancellation of $100bn of debt. So far only $13.2bn has been written off.

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