Aid comparisons likely to vex G8 leaders

GLENEAGLES - The summit had not even begun but the spinning had already started. With the leaders of the G8 industrial nations still en route to Gleneagles, government advisers and poverty action groups were already starting to point the finger of blame last night.

All of the major players at the 3-day summit, which will begin today, know that whatever deal is struck on aid for Africa, the harder task will be to convince a wider public, buoyed by the euphoria of the Live8 concerts, that it will deliver enough real cash to make poverty history.

Tony Blair and his fellow G8 leaders will have to settle a transatlantic row over aid and trade that dominated the talks between their officials, known as "sherpas", at the weekend.

The disagreement is over the prominence of the details of what individual member countries are pledging to give to the target of doubling the annual global aid budget to US$100bn set by Mr Blair.

The European Union has committed to double its aid from US$40bn last year by 2010. The US has offered to add an extra US$4.5bn while offers from Canada and Japan appear to take the total to US$47bn.

However, it is understood the US has been "stung" by signs that the process had been turned into a "beauty contest" of aid pledges - with their US$4.5bn looking unimpressive next to the EU's US$40bn.

More progress was made at the weekend by the sherpas on the communique about climate change. Mr Blair, in Singapore for the Olympic bid, said a deal was "within our grasp" but again the finger of blame is already pointing at the White House where the President's advisers could insist on US concessions being withdrawn.

On aid to Africa, the eight nations have not yet agreed what the headline sum should be as there is mounting concern that some of the contributions will be attacked by campaigners as reannouncements of old commitments.

ActionAid, the global campaign group, said America's US$4.5bn includes US$3bn already in the pipeline from the Millennium Challenge Account. Groups are also worried that since the aid is specifically for Africa, the White House might raid its budget from other poor countries to pay for it.

The Make Poverty History Coalition, which is calling for US$50bn of new aid to come on stream next year, said no money would be on stream in 2006 while just US$8.5bn of the US$25bn package specifically for Africa was actually new money. Steve Tibbett, ActionAid's head of policy and campaigns, said rich nations were using millions of poor people to "score a PR coup".

"Look behind the rhetoric and the reality falls far short," he said. "We are still nowhere near a deal that will effectively tackle global poverty. So far the UK government is largely serving up spin and hype."

Jo Leadbeater, head of advocacy at Oxfam, said: "This is the first time in history the text of the final communique has been up for grabs this late in the game."

She said that delaying aid increases until 2010 as proposed would leave a US$100bn "black hole" in aid budgets and 500 million people in desperate poverty.

On climate change, there were signs the irritation by Jacques Chirac, the French president, with Mr Blair over CAP reform and the EU constitution has spilled into the G8 meeting. The French have been insisting on Mr Blair - as the host for the conference - engaging in tough bargaining with the US including putting an explicit reference to Kyoto protocols in the communique.

However, French officials made clear they never intended to scupper the talks with the US, who have refused to sign up to Kyoto. The US, meanwhile, moved towards the rest of the G8 by accepting some of the scientific arguments that mankind was responsible for the warming of the planet.

The French were also pleased that the communique negotiated by the sherpas contained references to the emissions trading which has been started in Europe. British officials said Mr Blair thought there was "a growing consensus" on the approach to greenhouse gases said to be causing global warming.

"We are aware progress has been made and we still are making progress but we won't be able to see how far we have got until Thursday or Friday," said the Prime Minister's spokesman.

Referring specifically to climate change agreements, he added: "We still need to go down to the wire."

However, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth said: "It is worrying. All these negotiations seem to be going backwards. The communique is weak and nothing that George Bush has said has fill us with confidence at all."

- INDEPENDENT