24 July 2006
G8's broken promises make me angry
The G8's failure to meet its pledges on poverty has made us all very angry, says Ruth Webb.
Poverty surrounds us all - it affects every one of us, both internationally and nationally. But still the main governments around the world have not made enough progress in third world countries.
In Niger 200,000 children are out of school because donors failed to provide funding. In Uganda president Museveni changed the constitution to stay in power for another term. The conflict continues in Sudan where 200,000 people have died and two million have been displaced. Is this what we campaigned for last summer? It has been a year since the G8 summit, but has the government lived up to their promises for ending poverty? Did they listen to us?
The G8 pledged to double aid by 2010 - however, when you exclude debt cancellations, actual aid from some countries has dropped and the UK has decreased its overall aid by 2 per cent since 2004. That said, the pledge to cancel the debts of 18 of the world's poorest countries has been fulfilled and this has made a huge difference in Burundi, where 300,000 children now receive free education.
Three of the main pledges have still not been achieved: to establish an African Union peacekeeping force, to achieve trade justice and to have universal primary education by 2015.
The G8's failure to meet its pledges and targets has made many of us, including me, very angry at their broken promises. The UK government have recognised that little action has been achieved; it has announced the setting up of a progress committee to examine how effective the government's actions on aid really are. I hope this committee examines the real needs of Africa and clearly shows what needs to be done in the near future.
What can we do to show our anger on broken poverty promises? Will poverty ever really end unless we show our anger about the current situation? Add your face to Generation Why's angry faces to show that you want action to all the broken promises.
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My name is Ruth Webb and I live in a small village close to the Welsh border. In my spare time I enjoy listening to a wide variety of music, reading books and going to the cinema and theatre. I feel strongly about equal rights and the grounds of going to war. I volunteer to work with disabled children and want to do something similar with disadvantaged children in the developing world in the future.
