Global aid figures show a lack of commitment

With all of the head spinning stuff going on in the last few weeks, the announcement of the latest global aid figures got lost between the marches and the meetings.

This money helps to provide things like HIV and AIDS treatment for people, as well as training doctors and nurses, throughout the developing world.

As well as doing fairly life saving stuff like that, these figures are an indication of how rich nations are doing in meeting their commitments to developing countries.

So, what did we learn from global aid figures?

The main headline is that most rich nations still have a mountain to climb to meet their promises to increase global aid by $50 billion by 2010. Italy, the G8 chair in 2009, is the worst offender. They'll need to increase aid spending by 145% to meet their promise.

However, the good news is that there has been a 10% increase in global foreign aid - to $120 billion. At first glance this is impressive. But we live in a world where $173 billion can be found to save an insurance company.

Stack this up against the massive sums that have been found for 'fiscal stimulus', 'cash injections' and other things that require figures running into the trillions, $8.4 of them - I don't think my brain knows what that is - then this figure is tiny. In fact it's 0.3% of national income.

Therefore, in real terms aid levels haven't changed since 1993. A time when South African apartheid was coming to an end, the North Ireland Peace Process began and Mr Blobby was number 1. I thought the world had well and truly moved on.

When belts are being tightened, people start questioning the value of aid. But developing countries are being hit hard by the current crisis.

Foreign Direct Investment into developing countries has collapsed, global trade has ground to a virtual halt and tax havens continue to deprive developing countries of much needed income. Aid is needed now more than ever to help the poorest countries weather the economic tsunami.

Aid alone is not enough for the poorest countries to escape the poverty trap, but quality long-term aid does make a huge difference. In Tanzania aid has helped to provide free schooling to its primary-aged children - allowing 3.5 million more children to attend.

After many commitments, summits, meetings, plans and goals, when it comes to aid, things are much the same now as they were 15 years ago.

Now that the whirlwind around the G20 is over, it's back to making sure that world leaders stick to their commitments. Lives depend on it.

Ian Sullivan is a campaigner at Oxfam