45m children 'face death'

LONDON - About 45 million children around the world will die in the next decade because rich countries have failed to meet their aid promises, Oxfam has said.

In its Paying the Price report, the aid agency said countries like the United States, Japan and Germany had reneged on pledges made in 1970 to make 0.7 per cent of their national income available in aid.

As a result up to 45 million children would die by 2015, it said.

"The world's poorest children are paying for rich countries' policies on aid and debt with their lives," said Oxfam director Barbara Stocking.

"[Since 1970] none of the G8 members have reached this target and many haven't even set a timetable."

The aid budgets of rich nations are half what they were in 1960, Oxfam said, while poor countries are having to cough up US$100 million ($138 million) a day in debt repayments.

The United Nations is committed to halving world poverty by 2015, but is making painfully slow progress.

Oxfam said the US was giving just 0.14 per cent of its national income in aid - one-tenth of what it spent on invading Iraq - and much aid from the European Union arrived a year late.

It said US aid would not hit the target to halve world poverty until 2040, and Germany would not hit it until 2087. Japan was actually cutting its aid budget.

- REUTERS