Live8 and Gleneagles - what did they achieve?
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Your support makes all the difference.Myles Wickstead, COMMISSION FOR AFRICA
Agreement to double development assistance to Africa by 2010? Impossible. But it happened. Gleneagles also endorsed most of the other (90-odd) recommendations of the Commission for Africa. So far, so good. But perhaps only in 2015 will we see whether 2005 really was the year when Africa, supported by the international community, began to make significant progress: So far 8 out of 10
George Gelber, CAFOD
Debt: Excellent progress made at the G8 on debt and now ratified by the IMF and World Bank. We are disappointed though that the UK did not ensure that debt relief was not included in the aid budget: 7 out of 10
Aid: The task is to ensure that increasing flows of aid have a real impact on poverty - easier said than done: 5 out of 10
Trade: This has got even worse since the G8. Between them the EU and the US have ensured that there will be no progress on agriculture: 0 out of 10
Richard Miller, ACTIONAID
Make Poverty History changed the terms of the debate in Britain and spurred people to believe that worldwide poverty can and must be ended, just as slavery was stopped. But Gleneagles did not deliver enough. The anti-poverty movement must now hold politicians to their existing promises and challenge them to do much more: 4 out of 10
Claire Melamed, CHRISTIAN AID
On aid and debt relief the G8 did more than any meeting had done before - though still less than what was needed. On trade, the G8 leaders did no more than write cheques that they promised to honour at the WTO meeting in Hong Kong. But the cheques bounced higher than a Gleneagles golf ball - it was countries in the G8 who baulked at giving the poorest countries better access to their markets, insisting on so many exceptions that the promise became almost meaningless: 2 out of 10 on trade
Adrian Lovett, OXFAM
Last month's announcement that rural people in Zambia can now visit the doctor for free - a trip that used to cost the equivalent of £150 - would not have been possible without the debt relief confirmed at Gleneagles. But the G8's failure to do more, especially to redirect trade negotiations towards a conclusion that would help people in poverty, now threatens to undermine the positive steps taken: 5 out of 10
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