KEY POINTS:
World powers have pledged US$60 billion (NZ$79bn) to fight AIDS and other diseases ravaging Africa but development campaigners complained the Group of Eight had offered little fresh cash for the poor.
Leaders of the world's richest nations were accused of watering down their pledges to help the poorest countries after they failed to get back on track to deliver the aid promises they made two years ago at Gleneagles.
The G8 summit in Germany agreed a US$60bn package to relieve suffering from Aids in Africa.
But the leaders angered aid campaigners by merely reaffirming their 2005 pledges, which are already US$8bn behind schedule, without taking action to bridge the gap.
The US$60 billion headline figure amounts to US$12 billion annually to be spent on Aids, TB, malaria and reinforcing health systems. Of that US$12 billion, up to US$9 billion has either been pledged already, according to Oxfam estimates, or is part of existing aid packages.
So, the total annual increase in Africa spending amounts to just US$3 billion.
Adding to the frustration, the leaders' declaration set no specific timetable, saying the money would flow "over the coming years".
"The headlines sound impressive but ultimately mean precious little," Max Lawson, Senior Policy Advisor at Oxfam said.
"Instead of delivering what they promised the G8 has tried to get the biggest possible headline number out of the smallest possible aid increase."
The announcement failed to break down individual countries' contributions or spell out how much of the sum had been previously promised.
"I am exasperated," said Irish rock star and anti-poverty campaigner Bono.
"I think it is deliberately the language of obfuscation. It is deliberately misleading."
Kate Krauss, spokeswoman for the US-based Physicians for Human Rights said that despite commitments made two years ago, there has been little or no progress on achieving universal access to comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention programmes, treatment and care and support by 2010, or toward developing and strengthening African health systems.
"AIDS advocates are dismayed by its vague language and lack of planning to meet ambitious goals, despite its promise to add USUS$30 billion to US commitments," she said.
"The G-8 communique is turning into a wish list, and not a document that is going to save lives.... There needs to be a plan for meeting the previous commits made at Gleneagles," she said.
"If there is no specific plan for meeting the goals that they are setting out, they don't happen."
Coming a day after seeming progress toward a global deal on climate change, there was fierce criticism from aid groups that the G8 had downgraded Africa to focus on global warming.
At Gleneagles, G8 leaders agreed to raise annual spending on aid from US$79bn to £129bn by 2010, with half the US$50bn extra going to Africa.
But pressure groups say that on current trends the target will be missed by US$22bn, and have singled out Germany, Italy and Canada for criticism.
They accused the G8 of backtracking from their 2005 pledge to provide universal access to Aids treatment by 2010, and said and most of the money announced for diseases yesterday was not "new".
British officials conceded that it was part of the "cake" agreed at Gleaneagles, but denied the universal treatment goal had been abandoned.
Replying directly to Bono's criticism, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "It never does go far enough, and that is understandable."
But he defended the deal at the summit, saying millions of lives would be saved by the US$60bn commitment to tackle killer diseases.
"The process we began two years ago is going to continue year on year," he said.
"It's the very nature of these things that people are unhappy with the amount of the commitments given but I think you have to say that going back a few years, we have come a huge distance."
Blair insisted: "We have recommitted ourselves to all the commitments we made a couple of years ago at Gleneagles. The important thing is we have set out how we are going to do them."
He said the G8 and Africa both knew "we have got a long way to go and a lot to do but the truth is there's been immense progress made."
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and summit chair, said: "We are aware of our responsibilities and will fulfil our obligations."
But campaign adding that 24,000 people will have died from Aids during the three-day summit.
"Even this US$60bn smokescreen can't cover up the abject failure of the G8 to move forward on their Aids promises," said Aditi Sharma, head of Action Aid's HIV-Aids campaign.
"The G8 leaders are US$8bn off track this year on meeting their Gleneagles aid pledge s but you wouldn't guess it from reading their Africa declaration,"
Matt Phillips of Save the Children warned that world leaders were allowing the Millennium Development Goals to have world poverty by 2015 slip out of reach: "The deal was warm in words but that's cold comfort for the millions of African children who will continue to die through the lack of free health care," he said.
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