Hilary Benn on G8 Aid Commitments

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 4/06/2007 02:47:00 AM
The Right Honourable Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the UK's Department for International Development (DfID), has asked other G8 nations to live up to the aid commitments they set during the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. (This summit was somewhat overshadowed by the simultaneous occurrence of the London subway bombings.) Benn claims that Britain has lived up to its pledge to increase spending on aid to help meet the Millennium Development Goals, and the others should too:

Britain has honoured its promise to increase global aid spending and other countries should follow suit, International Secretary Hilary Benn has urged. His call came amid warnings that the world's richer nations are not paying up on commitments made at the Gleneagles G8 summit nearly two years ago.

Mr Benn said: "The figures are disappointing, although we need to recognise that the total in 2005 was the largest ever and 2006 figures are still about £20 billion up on 2004. But countries have got to keep the promises they made and Britain has certainly done so and we will continue to encourage others to honour their promises."

But he also told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's not just the level of aid that is given. It's not just a question that if we could write a big enough cheque then poverty would be overcome. Fundamentally it's about governance. Corruption is a problem in different places…"

The eight leaders of the world's leading industrialised nations, including Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush, pledged an annual increase in global aid to £25.3 billion [$50 billion] by 2010. They also promised to wipe out debts for some of the poorest countries in the world, and to provide universal access to HIV medicines in Africa within five years.

Charities have warned that unless drastic action is taken by the G8 - made up of the US, UK, Italy, Japan, Canada, France, Russia, and Germany - several of the key pledges from 2005 will fail to be met.