21 December 2005

As the year that was supposed to make poverty history draws to a close, one of the campaign’s lead agencies has issued its verdict on what has been achieved. ActionAid today shows that despite some progress, failure to move on trade, and backsliding over aid and debt commitments threatens to undermine all of Make Poverty History’s targets.

ActionAid has cited the campaign’s greatest success as its mass mobilisation of public support. Worldwide, 40 million campaign actions took place, from demonstrations and concerts to wearing white bands.

The agency argues that such public support will need to be harnessed in sustained campaigning from 2006 onwards. This will need to have an increasingly international face, with the birth of a global anti-poverty movement, if the pledges made at the Gleneagles summit in July are to be met.

The Gleneagles pledges included agreement to cancel the debts of 18 of the poorest countries to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank, a commitment by the EU and US to US$48bn more in aid by 2010, with half the increase going to Africa, and an agreement to achieve as closely as possible, universal access to treatment for HIV and Aids by 2010.

Yet ActionAid is warning that, in the wake of failed trade talks at the Hong Kong World Trade Organisation ministerial, rich countries are now backsliding on what was agreed in the summer.

Richard Miller, ActionAid UK Director said: "Without the massive increase in public pressure this year, world poverty would not have climbed so high up the agenda of the UK government, the EU and the other rich countries. But public activism has not been matched by political action. It’s not enough for politicians to wear white bands. They had the power to turn commitment into reality in 2005 and they failed to rise fully to the challenge."

Half the new aid pledged this year will come from Germany, Italy, the United States and Spain, but German and Italian finance ministries have made it clear that they do not regard aid targets as binding. At the UN World Summit in September the head of USAID also raised doubts about the feasibility of American commitments.

The board of the International Monetary Fund will meet today and is expected to delay debt cancellation for some countries because they argue they have not satisfied economic conditions, despite a promise by the G7 group of nations that the debt deal agreed at Gleneagles would carry no new conditions.

The outcome of the Hong Kong World Trade Organisation ministerial is bitterly disappointing for the millions of people in developing countries whose livelihoods depended on a genuinely fair deal. Success has been judged in terms of the talks not collapsing, rather than against any substantive progress for the poorest countries in terms of their ability to protect poor farmers, key industries and basic services.

Richard Miller said: "Pledges have been half hearted, and recent backsliding on aid and debt commitments underscores the need for sustained pressure. This must come from the public. Our supporters understand that 2005 has been the start of a long process, and we will be holding politicians to account over the coming year."