By Craig and Marc Kielburger
Canadians are rightfully angry to hear that $1.2 billion is going missing from public coffers to pay for the G8/G20 summits. Too bad we've heard little about the missing $19.5 billion.
Five years ago, the G8 leaders shook hands with superstars such as Bono and Bob Geldof as they pledged $50 billion in aid to developing countries. At the 2010 deadline, they came up $19.5 billion short. That's the real scandal of the G8.
Maybe the security price-tag and the disruption to daily lives in Toronto would be worthwhile if the G8 and G20 actually delivered on commitments.
(Then again, maybe if the leaders followed through, the protests and security bill would be smaller.)
Unfortunately, it's security that shows up on balance sheets -not broken promises. Lack of accountability means commitments are usually forgotten soon after the Summits close.
It's easy to take promises with a grain of salt. At last year's Italy summit, the G8 leaders made 254 commitments, only a fraction of which have seen action.
Few would be surprised. Entire generations have been born into broken promises.
In 1970, world leaders agreed to a pledge tabled by former Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson to give 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product to aid. Despite resuscitating that commitment twice in 1992 and 2002, Canada is less than halfway to reaching this goal and has no timeline to see it through.
On top of this, we started the century with the now off-track Millennium Development Goals. Among other issues, it addressed maternal health. Today, the 2005 Gleneagles commitments are also collecting dust.
Gleneagles was ambitious. It cancelled $40 billion in debt. The leaders seemed serious about keeping their promises to increase aid. Unfairly, they raised our hopes before falling back into the perpetual cycle of promise, pose and put aside.
Going into the G8 and G20 Summits, the wealthy nations had delivered only 61 cents on the dollar committed. Think about it. If it was your mortgage, you'd face foreclosure.
But, despite the financial crisis, something started by greed on Wall Street, pushing an estimated 100 million more people in developing nations into hunger, some wealthy nations are actually lobbying to do less. These countries are France and Italy, two nations that have gone drastically off-course on their commitments.
Canada is among the few that met and exceeded targets. This is far from a victory. Our original pledge was the smallest of the G8 in terms of volume and average of gross national product. We've also given little indication of our plans going forward.
As we've seen, making promises is easy. Rarely do we see the consequences of breaking them. In 2008, following a series of devastating hurricanes, the international community pledged $300 million to help Haiti. Only 30 per cent of that money had been delivered when the earthquake struck in January.
Had those commitments been fulfilled earlier, perhaps Haiti would have had at least some infrastructure and development to lessen the effects of the disaster.
Rather than get complacent, we need to get angry. It's up to citizens to remind governments why they need to keep their commitments alive. Once, in a conversation, former U.S. president Bill Clinton told us that a politician's greatest fear is a passionate group of stubborn citizens. If we get passionate about not accepting failure, maybe we can convince governments that the G20 can be more than a glorified photo op. It controls 85 per cent of global economic output. This is a group that can make things happen. At Gleneagles, the leaders got our hopes up. Perhaps it's time we call in the debt. Canada alone found a billion dollars to keep world leaders safe. Surely we can find a way to offer that same security to the developing world.
