Italian G8 scores a C grade on poverty report card – Can Canada beat this next year?

Food security is one area where the world’s richest countries performed well

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. (July 15, 2009)— At the conclusion of the G8 in L’Aquila, Italy, World Vision looked at the G8’s performance in keeping their commitments that would positively impact children. With Canada hosting the G8 next year, this assessment set the bar that Canada must raise. The G8’s average grade for five specific areas—child and maternal mortality, nutrition and food security, fulfilling overall aid commitments, improving aid effectiveness and accountability—is a C, with Canada earning a C+.

For World Vision, the biggest failure of the G8 leaders was not addressing their past commitments on child and maternal mortality. These are truly crisis issues with more than nine million children under five dying every year from preventable causes and more than 500,000 women dying in child birth.

“Prime Minister Harper described Iran as the most important issue on the G8’s agenda,” said Dave Toycen, president and CEO of World Vision Canada, “While our leaders need to address important security issues, the fact is that more than 26,000 children are actually dying every day, and this G8 did nothing to address this crisis.”

According to World Vision’s analysis, an additional $15 billion is required to fulfill the G8’s commitment to save more than two thirds of these children and mothers. Even in a time of economic crisis this amount is not unreasonable, especially given the ability of the world to marshal trillions of dollars to address the financial crisis. Canada’s fair share of this amount is about $660 million.

On the more positive side, Canada made a solid contribution to President Obama’s food security initiative by contributing $600 million over three years. While details on the overall US$20 billion fund are still sketchy, it will be focused on agricultural support, a sector that has been badly neglected for many years. This should enable poor farmers in Africa and other regions to provide nutritious food to their children, families and communities and rely less on food aid. What will the Canadian government’s initiative be next year?

A second area where Canada and the G8 as a whole made progress was on the development of an expanded reporting mechanism to help measure the progress of its commitments in a more transparent fashion.

Despite the overall poor performance of the G8, World Vision is hopeful that Canada will take a leadership role in fulfilling child-related promises as host of the G8 in Muskoka next June. “At his closing press conference, Prime Minister Harper said that Canada will insist that past G8 commitments be filled to preserve the credibility of this forum. We take that as a positive sign that he will bring some new dollars to the table to save the lives of children. We hope that next year all G8 leaders will be talking about a ‘Harper Initiative’ on child and maternal health in the same way that they spoke of the Obama Initiative this year” said Toycen.

World Vision’s overall mark for the 2009 G8 was a C. The individual marks are as follows:

Child and Maternal Health  D
Nutrition and Food Security  B
Fulfilling Overall Aid Commitments D-
Accountability    C+
Improving Aid Effectiveness  B-

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Notes to Editors:

World Vision Canada’s President and CEO Dave Toycen was in Italy for the G8 meetings and announced World Vision’s plans to engage Canadians in a campaign to hold the Canadian government and the G8 accountable for their promises to children and their mothers.
World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.

For more information or to set up an interview, please contact:

Sharon Marshall
905-565-6200 ext. 2213
416-616-9147 (cell)
sharon_marshall@worldvision.ca

Tiffany Baggetta
905-565-6200 ext.2485
416-305-9612 (cell)
tiffany_baggetta@worldvision.ca

Full G8 Report Card below

Area of Action	G8 Grade	Comments	Canada’s Grade	Comments
Child and Maternal Health	D	In 2007 the G8 agreed to commit US$60 billion in new money to fight infectious diseases and strengthen health systems. The intended reach for this commitment has grown each year as new aspects of health have been added without changing the target figure. In the accountability report released at the L’Aquila summit, the funds credited to this amount included non-ODA funding in some cases, and overall appear to be just a report on funds that were already in the pipeline, not added as a result of this commitment. This is in the context of the very real likelihood that child and maternal deaths will stop their downward trend and actually rise in the coming year.	D+	Canada gets a slightly higher score because some of the funding directed at agricultural support will positively impact child and maternal health.
Nutrition and Food Security	B	This became the one positive note for the poor at this year’s G8. The US President’s food security initiative may have received a better score if there was greater clarity about the funds that each country committed. For example, is this actually new money or just recycled from another part of each country’s aid program? Secondly, while large in one sense, this amount seems un-ambitious when taking into account the fact that G8 countries actually delivered more than US$23 billion in food security funding in the 18 months leading up to the summit. Thus, US$20 billion over three years could be seen as moving backwards.	B+	Canada gets a slightly higher grade because it has committed all of its $600 million over three years toward agricultural support, an area that has been badly neglected in recent years. This investment should have a lasting direct benefit on poor farmers in Africa and elsewhere.
Fulfilling Overall Aid Commitments	D-	In 2005, the G8 and other donor countries agreed to lift overall annual aid for 2010 by US$50 billion. While some countries are on track to meet their commitments (including Canada), the G8 is way behind on meeting this goal with only one year remaining. Some countries, especially Italy and France, are going backwards on their ODA commitments.	D+	Canada gets a slightly higher score because it is on track to keeping its commitment to double overall aid over a 10 year period from 2001 to 2010. But since this was one of the most un-ambitious goals of any G8 country and since Canada has still not made a commitment to a timetable to achieve either the donor country average on aid or the longstanding 0.7 per cent GNI goal, we don’t believe it deserves a higher mark.
Accountability	C+	We and others have proposed that the G8 needs to develop clear and transparent reporting so that it can be fairly assessed in terms of keeping its commitments. This year, the G8 published a “Preliminary Accountability Report” for the first time. This is definitely a step in the right direction.	C+	Given the importance that Prime Minister Harper has placed on G8 accountability, we expect to see this reporting improved for 2010.
Aid Effectiveness	B-	We are concerned not just about the volume of aid, but the quality of its delivery. Commitments were made in 2005 (the “Paris Declaration”) to improve the effectiveness of aid. Progress has been made in a number of areas, including the “untying” of aid, however these will need to be increased if the 2010 targets are to be met.	B	Canada gets a slightly higher grade because of its stated focus on this area and particular achievements around untying aid.