Accra Aid conference: “priorities need to change”
Can we halve poverty by 2015?
I haven’t written about development issues for ages – but last week’s Aid Effectiveness conference in Ghana is a good place to wade briefly back in.
Held in Accra, it was designed to find ways of making aid from developed countries have more impact in the countries they’re supposed to be helping.
Three years after the Paris Conference – where 100 countries agreed to do more to sort this out – it is still a huge problem.
Countries like the UK, France, Italy and America all promised to donate more cash – but shamefully they’re not making good on their promises.
“In simple terms” says Professer Jeffrey Sachs in an interview on Hardtalk, “the limiting factor holding back our progress towards the [Millennium Developement] Goals is the richest countries coming up with the money they have promised.
“We live in an age of cynicism and resistance, but we are not asking goverments to do anything they have not already promised. Some countries are delivering on their promises made in 2005 but where are France, Germany and Italy? If these countries are lagging then by far the biggest lagger is the US where we are committing only 0.17% of our income to development assistance.”
There’s only seven years left until we’re supposed to have reaced the Millennium Development Goals. At this rate that won’t happen.
Meanwhile blogger par excellence in Accra EK Benah was at the conference in Accra last week – check out his posts here.
Adam Westbrook // ideas on digital storytelling and publishing 
[…] Let’s remember that these are communiqués, declarations. They need to be put into concrete practice, with monitorable time-bound benchmarks on those things that really matter. Accra was not the first meeting of its kind. The track record so far is mixed. Three years ago the major donors got together at Gleneagles and pledged major increases in development aid, with focus on Africa. The actual amounts of aid delivered so far fall short. As it is customary, Jeff Sachs reminds us that some of the most powerful donors in particular are lagging behind. […]