CANADIAN
MINISTER OF FINANCE SPEAKS AT CANADIAN CONSULATE IN NEW YORK
— Canadian Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty speaks June 21 at
the Canadian consulate in New York ahead of the G8 and G20 summits.
The G8 will meet June 25-26 in Huntsville, Ontario, while he G20 nations
gather June 26-27 in Toronto.(CNS photo/Brendan McDermid, Reuters)
Tracking
G-8 accountability: hype vs. substance
By
Michael Swan
Catholic
News Service
TORONTO (CNS)
-- The Group of Eight countries have issued a glowing report card complimenting
themselves on how "the G-8 has acted as a force for positive change
and its actions have made a difference in addressing global challenges."
However,
an independent academic assessment of development aid from the world's
leading industrialized countries since the 2009 G-8 summit, as well
as comments from aid agencies and activists from poor countries, are
not quite so kind.
The Muskoka
Accountability Report assembled by the G-8 nations takes a mostly positive
view of how well summit participants have kept their commitments.
"In
some areas, the G-8 can point to considerable success; in others, it
has further to go to fully deliver on its promises," according
to the report issued June 20 as final preparations were being made for
the summit in Huntsville, Ontario, June 25-26.
The G-8 Research
Group at the University of Toronto said the leading industrial nations
complied with a little more than half of their promises. Canada fared
a little better, meeting about two-thirds of its promises, good enough
for third place, tied with the European Union, the G-8 Research Group
found.
Britain remained
in the top spot in the annual analysis. Japan edged up to second. The
United States was fifth.
Canada has
led the way on accountability, which will be a major theme of this year's
G-8 meeting and the related Group of 20 conference that follows in Toronto
June 26-27, said Canada Foodgrains Bank Executive Director Jim Cornelius.
But while
G-8 officials talk about accountability on last year's $22 billion in
pledges for food security and agricultural development, the aid community
is still waiting on their report, Cornelius said.
The hard
part is separating the new money from recycled old promises.
"Governments like to count things more than once," Cornelius
said.
Cornelius said he hopes new accountability mechanisms will make it easier
to track G-8 and G-20 performances.
"What
Canada has been doing is working hard on setting up a whole framework
for follow-up to all commitments, not just the L'Aquila ones,"
he said, referring to the 2009 meeting in Italy. "If that is successful,
then the same sort of mechanism can be used to assess the success or
the follow-through on maternal and child health."
But ticking
off promises kept and holding annual meetings that concentrate on single
issues might not be enough when all the issues are linked, according
to activists from Kairos, an ecumenical social justice advocacy organization.
The activists toured Canada in advance of the summit to discuss issues
they contend are being overlooked by the G-8 nations.
Straight
investments in agriculture, such as those promised last year in L'Aquila,
will not work without taking into account the effects of climate change,
said activist Naty Atz Sunc, general coordinator of the Association
for Community Development and Promotion in Guatemala.
Since Hurricane
Mitch hit Guatemala in 1998, poor farmers have found it difficult to
re-establish their livelihoods because weather patterns have been unpredictable.
Spending on agriculture must be linked to climate change adaptation,
she said.
Since 2009,
farmers in Kenya have tried to plant crops three times, only to be frustrated
by uncharacteristic drought and weather patterns that village elders
say they have never seen before, said Isaiah Kipyegon Toroitich, a program
officer working for Norwegian Church Aid in the East African nation.
"You
can easily see communities becoming poorer and poorer," he said.
None of the aid spending will work without "rehumanizing society,"
said Francois Pihaatae of the Pacific Conference of Churches in Tahiti.
Ordinary,
Christians ought to be able to look past the hype and the traffic jams
of the summit and see the serious issues, Cornelius said.
"They
should care," he said. "The challenge is to be able to look
below the surface, because a lot of what happens on the surface is hype."
Copyright (c) 2010 Catholic News Service/US Conference of Catholic
Bishops
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