[E-rundbrief] Info 252 - G8-Summit: Reduzierte Erwartungen und Hilfe

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 252 -  G8-Summit: Reduzierte Erwartungen und Hilfe. 
Sanjay Suri (IPS): G8 Summit: NGOs see clouds over Gleneagles. Friends of 
the Earth, War on Want und World Development: Challenge the legitimacy of 
the G8 and their free-market model, and create a better world. Joint Policy 
Statement. Over 200,000 make Anti-Poverty Demand - Make Poverty History 
Rally, Edinburgh (Scotland), July 2nd, 2005.

Bad Ischl, 6.7.2005

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Die britische entwicklungspolitische "War on Want"-Bewegung 
(www.waronwant.org) hinterfragt im IPS-Bericht die Strategien und die zu 
erwartenden Resultate des G8-Gipfels in Schottland. Sie unterstützt auch 
die "Make Poverty History (MPH) campaign". In den zwei letzten Absätzen 
dokumentieren sie kurz die verstärkte Rüstung bei der Verarmung der 
Bevölkerung.

Daran anschließend dokumentieren wir das "Joint Policy Statement" von 
Friends of the Earth, War on Want und World Development Movement "Challenge 
the legitimacy of the G8 and their free-market model, and create a better 
world".

M.R.

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* Wednesday, 6 July 2005 *

G8 SUMMIT : NGOS SEE CLOUDS OVER GLENEAGLES

by Sanjay Suri

GLENEAGLES (IPS) - This week's summit of the Group of Eight leading
industrial powers is set to fall short of the response needed to tackle
global poverty, says the non-governmental organisation War on Want.

The London-based anti-poverty group released calculations on the eve of
the G8 summit Tuesday showing that the money on the table at the July
6-8 meet at Scotland's Gleneagles golf resort will provide less than
five percent of the debt relief and less than 20 percent of the aid
needed to meet the objectives of the Make Poverty History (MPH) campaign.

"Our information is based on reports we're getting from the Treasury,"
John Hilary, director of campaigns and policy at War on Want, told IPS.

For aid, the total package likely to be announced is 25 billion dollars,
Hilary said. "And much of that has already been pledged. (U.S.
President) George Bush has said he will produce an extra 4.5 billion
dollars over what was given earlier. But of that, three billion dollars
has already been pledged under the Millennium Challenge Account."

Bush proposed the Millennium Challenge Account as a means to link more
development aid from industrialised nations to "greater responsibility"
from developing nations.

Japan too is announcing new aid, but much of that is "just a
re-allocation," Hilary said. "We are not getting any sense that anything
new will be done. At the most there could be a little extra here or
there on particular deals."

Aid, debt and trade have been cited as the three pillars of development.
"We are hearing now that the United States and the European Union will
launch a savage attack on the trade regimes of developing countries. So
the tiny crumbs that are given by way of aid and debt relief will be
wiped out by the trade policies of the G8 countries."

In place of the 45 billion dollars which would be released by the
100-percent cancellation of the poorest countries' debts, the G8 are
offering just over one billion in cancelled debt service payments -- a
fraction of what is required, War on Want said in a statement.

The G8 deal announced at the finance ministers' meeting last month
provides debt relief to 18 countries in a package totalling 40 billion
dollars, with the possibility of more countries being included in
future, War on Want says. The package translates into just over one
billion dollars in saved debt repayments which these countries will no
longer have to make to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank
and African Development Bank each year.

"Yet this is well short of the 45.7 billion dollars which would be
released if the G8 included all 62 poor countries which need 100 percent
debt cancellation to meet the Millennium Development Goals," the group
says.

The United Nations General Assembly established eight MDGs in 2000,
which include halving global poverty and hunger by 2015, as well as
improving primary education, maternal health and environmental
sustainability; reducing infant mortality and combating HIV/AIDS and
other major diseases.

"In addition, the countries in line for debt cancellation are required
to have 'qualified' by virtue of meeting harmful economic conditions
under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) process, which includes
sweeping programmes of trade liberalisation and privatisation. These
programmes have in turn been shown to cause increased poverty --
undermining the positive potential of debt cancellation."

The G8 members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have responded to
the Make Poverty History coalition's call for trade justice by hardening
their positions against it, War on Want says.

"The EU and the United States have launched a new assault on the
industrial and services sectors of developing countries at the WTO,
attempting to force open these 'emerging markets' for the benefit of
their own corporations -- even as they concede that this will lead to
large-scale bankruptcies, mass unemployment and widespread poverty in
the South," the group says.

At the same time, they have hardened their stance on eliminating the
agricultural subsidies which undermine the livelihoods of farmers in the
developing world, it says. "The UN has calculated that trade subsidies
cost developing countries between 125 billion and 310 billion dollars a
year in lost sales and lower prices for their goods."

By comparison, the G8 military expenditure rose dramatically last year
-- the sixth year in a row to see an increase, the group says. World
military spending topped one trillion dollars (1,000 billion) during
2004, with G8 countries (United States, Canada, Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia) responsible for the vast majority,
according to figures released by the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute last month.

The U.S. military expenditure alone accounted for almost half the global
total, at 455 billion dollars. These do not look like signs that the G8
countries are set to do more for the world's poor, says War on Want. (END)

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Challenge the legitimacy of the G8 and their free-market model, and create 
a better world.

Joint Policy Statement

The problems of extreme poverty, inequality and environmental degradation 
are the most serious facing the world today. But the policies which the G8 
countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, USA) have 
followed to date have made things worse rather than better, empowering 
global corporations while impoverishing and even enslaving ordinary people. 
Ultimately the G8 countries have been part of the problem rather than the 
solution.

     * They have made the greatest historical greenhouse gas emissions that 
are causing climate change and are failing to take serious action to cut 
these emissions.

     * They are at the forefront of a set of economic and trade policies 
that increase environmental degradation and benefit rich country 
multinationals rather than the poor in the developing world.

     * They have used a system of Third World aid and debt cancellation to 
impose liberalisation and privatisation onto the recipients, thereby 
entrenching inequality and injustice.

     * They continue to control and manipulate global institutions to suit 
their own economic and foreign policy interests.

     * They have an ongoing history of botched military interventions right 
across the developing world.

To compound this, these countries have created an anti-democratic 
pseudo-institution called the G8, a kind of de-facto world government, 
pronouncing policy initiatives which affect the rest of the world. The G8 
acts to coordinate world affairs to the benefit of its members; an 
unapologetic statement of pure power that obstructs others from developing 
alternative, sustainable, inter-dependent and democratic models for global 
society.

Friends of the Earth, War on Want and the World Development Movement 
believe that the problems of climate change and of global poverty and 
inequality cannot be solved until:

     * The current free market, pro-corporate economic model being 
propounded by the G8 is scrapped in favour of policies which benefit the 
poor and achieve sustainable development.

     * The G8 countries commit to achieving change through democratic forms 
of global governance rather than meeting in their exclusive club.

Additional texts - links at www.corporateg8.org/info.html

The G8: a study in power John Hilary - Director of Campaigns and Policy at 
War on Want - looks at what the G8 will be discussing in Gleneagles this 
July, and why it's up to us to give them a warm welcome. An edited version 
of this article appears in the June issue of Red Pepper

When White Band Spells White Feather: How Glo-Bono-Phonies and Trojan Horse 
NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism an article by Patrick 
Bond, Dennis Brutus and Virginia Setshedi gives a critique from the South 
of the current Make Poverty History campaign.

Britain and the G8: a champion of the world's poor? by World Development 
Movement's Director Mark Curtis.

The Corporate Watch report, Bringing the G8 home: corporate involvement in 
and around the G8 2005 in Scotland aims to highlight the darker side of 
some of the corporations with bases in Scotland that stand to gain profile 
and wealth from the G8 summit.

www.corporateg8.org/info.html

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Over 200,000 make Anti-Poverty Demand - Make Poverty History Rally, 
Edinburgh (Scotland), July 2nd, 2005

The biggest demonstration in Scottish history saw 225,000 people march 
through Edinburgh yesterday (2 July), demanding debt cancellation, trade 
justice and more and better aid  and War on Want was right in the thick of it.

Nick Dearden, Senior Campaigner at War on Want said, "The message to the G8 
couldn't be clearer. People are sick and tired of fine words and rhetoric, 
they want action. This means 100% unconditional debt cancellation, aid 
programmes that don't see consultants lining their pockets with UK aid 
money and trade rules that benefit people in poor countries not western big 
business."

www.waronwant.org/?lid=10284


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