Oxfam Scotland today marked the anniversary of the UN pledging to give 0.7% of their gross national income (GNI) to development aid, using a giant birthday cake decorated with 40 candles.

Since that promise was made way back in October 1970, only a handful of countries have reached the target. The UK is not one of them, although it has since made another promise, to reach 0.7% by 2013.

While 0.7% represents mere crumbs from the richest tables, that tiny slice of the cake will help millions of people out of poverty, get more children into school and reduce the number of babies and mothers dying during or shortly after childbirth.

The failure of UN member countries to reach the 0.7% target has seen hunger rise in recent years. Almost a billion people around the world are going hungry and every five seconds, a child dies of hunger-related causes.

Oxfam is calling on the UK government to maintain its recent promise to reach 0.7% by 2013 and help ensure other countries make good their promises to increase aid.

Malcolm Fleming, Oxfam Scotland's Campaigns Manager, said:

"The year 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of a very important promise made by the UK government and other UN member countries.

"They agreed to give 0.7% of their wealth as aid to developing countries and to do it by the mid 1970s. That tiny percentage is easily affordable to the world's richest nations but can mean the difference between life and death for the world's poorest people.

"However, the UK has never reached that target and Oxfam thinks it's about time the country came good on that promise. The government has since set a target of 2013 to reach 0.7% but they must take huge steps towards achieving that in 2010.

"The economic downturn cannot be used as an excuse for not reaching the target. The effects of the recession are felt even more painfully in poor countries. If all of the UN member countries came good on their promise to give 0.7% every year, potentially millions of lives would be saved around the developing world."

The year 2010 also marks two other important anniversaries. It is the 10th anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals being set and the fifth anniversary of the 2005 G8 summit at Gleneagles.

The Millennium Development Goals were eight promises agreed by all the countries of the world in the year 2000 to: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality rates; improve maternal health; combat AIDS and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and to develop a global partnership for development - all by the year 2015.

So far, most of these goals are on target to fail if current progress is not drastically improved. The UN has called a high-level meeting for September 2010 to review the progress of the MDGs.

At Gleneagles in 2005, the world's richest eight countries promised to double the amount they give in foreign aid, particularly to Africa, to $50billion a year by the end of 2010. The failure of some of the G8 countries to meet their individual targets looks set to cause yet another promise from rich countries to poor countries to be broken.

Malcolm Fleming added:

"This year is the year of reckoning for rich countries. The next G8 summit will be held in Canada in June and that is when all of the promises made are due. The G8 has a few short months to avoid being remembered as the ones who let the poor die.

"The Millennium Development Goals were agreed 10 years ago and with just five years to go before they are due to be met, a lot of work will need to be done to avoid those promises being broken too.

"World leaders need to come together and get the MDGs back on track to avoid millions of people dying or being denied access to healthcare and education and to halt the devastating effects of climate change. There is no more time to waste."