Rich failing to honour pledges

An OECD report said there would be a $21bn deficit between the aid promised by most of the world’s wealthiest countries for this year and actual donations.

Africa will bear the brunt of these arrears, receiving just $12bn of the $25bn envisaged at a G8 summit in Scotland in 2005, when many countries promised to double aid.

“There is a world out there today that is running very, very short in terms of alternatives,” OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria told reporters.

International charity Oxfam denounced the failure of some of the world’s biggest economies to meet their commitments.

“These broken promises are nothing short of a scandal,” Oxfam senior policy adviser Max Lawson said in a statement.

“A woman dies every minute in childbirth somewhere in the world because of inadequate medical care and 72 million children remain out of school,” he said.

In 2005, a group of 15 EU states promised to donate a minimum of 0.51 percent of gross national income to development aid for the world’s poorest countries by 2010.

The OECD predicted Italy would reach only the 0.20 percent mark, Greece 0.21 percent, Austria 0.37 percent, Germany 0.40 percent and France 0.46 percent.

It said some countries would surpass the goal, despite the financial crisis, with Sweden set to provide 1.03 percent and Luxembourg one percent.

Even countries that have been particularly hard hit by the financial crisis have managed to deliver on their pledges, notably Britain (0.56 percent), Ireland (0.52 percent) and Spain (0.51 percent). Belgium is also set to exceed its promise by donating an estimated 0.7 percent of GNI.

“Countries such as the UK, Spain and Belgium are demonstrating it is possible to show development leadership, and we still hope to see others like France, Germany and Italy stepping up in 2010,” said Lawson.

The OECD said Japan was also likely to fall $4bn short of its G8 undertaking to donate $10bn more between 2005 and 2009.