Italy and France have been accused of reneging (svigte) on promises to increase aid to African nations, BBC online reports Thursday.
Anti-poverty group One, set up by rock star Bono, said Italy had actually cut aid to Africa despite making ambitious pledges at a 2005 economic summit. And it accused France of reducing its aid targets and cutting its aid budget.
The report, backed by figures like Bill Gates and Desmond Tutu, said Italy and France were holding back other members of the G8 group of rich nations. In 2005, the G8 pledged to increase aid to Africa by 25 billion US dollar by 2010 – more than doubling the 2004 level of aid to the continent.
Tthe research is underpinned by a fear that the global economic downturn could undo what modest progress has already been made.
Sir Bob Geldof and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan say in the report, that the worlds poorest people have benefited least from globalisation, but they are now suffering the most from a crisis they did not cause.
The One report concluded that the US, Canada and Japan had largely met their commitments – adding that their pledges had been relatively modest. It said the UK and Germany had missed some targets but were attempting to put in place much more ambitious programmes than the other nations.
The report, due for its worldwide release later, is particularly critical of Italy, which is due to hold a G8 summit later this year. “Based on Italys performance against the (last G8 summit) commitments, it has no credibility to host discussions of such global importance”, the report says.
The Africa manager of One, Edith Jibunoh, told the BBC: – We have estimated that in 2009… about half of the promises made will be delivered. But by 2010 they need to deliver the other half. Now Italy and France alone are 80 per cent responsible for that shortfall, she said.
The One group is part of the anti-poverty advocacy organisation Data (Debt, Aids, Trade Africa), set up in 2002.
