By James G. Neuger
July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Group of Eight leaders are finding it easier to conjure up words to denounce Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe than money to meet their African aid commitments.
The G-8 summit began yesterday with President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemning Mugabe, 84, who extended his 28-year reign by intimidating the opposition to withdraw from a runoff election. The rich nations, meantime, are falling behind on pledges to boost annual aid by $50 billion to poor nations by 2010, including a doubling of funds for Africa.
The cash is more vital now than when it was promised in 2005 as record prices for wheat, corn, rice and crude oil swell the ranks of the starving. With budgets strapped by slowing economic growth, the rich nations cut aid last year by 8 percent, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says.
``We need more effort, not less effort,'' European Commission President Jose Barroso said at the start of the summit in Toyako, northern Japan. ``The deteriorating economic situation made some governments more defensive.''
Halfway to the 2010 deadline, the G-8 -- the U.S., Japan, Germany, Italy, Britain, France, Canada and Russia -- is running about $30 billion behind on its pledges for Africa, said Charles Abani, southern African regional director for Oxfam.
``If that money were on the ground, we estimate that 5 million lives a year would be saved,'' Abani said in an interview. ``Three thousand-odd kids a day are dying from lack of access to basic water and sanitation.''
Staged Re-Election
G-8 condemnation of Mugabe's staged re-election served as a distraction from efforts to respond to the trauma playing out across the lesser-developed world. Members started the summit by discussing the food crisis with African leaders from seven countries -- Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania and Senegal -- with a combined population of 400 million.
``We find it absolutely scandalous that the G-8 leaders have responded the way they have done with Zimbabwe,'' said Kumi Naidoo, a South African who is chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. ``It's a lot of posturing.''
Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe has plunged into economic ruin. A decade-long recession and astronomical inflation rate of at least 355,000 percent have prompted 3 million citizens to flee to neighboring South Africa.
`Sham' Election
Calling the election a ``sham,'' Bush said yesterday that ``this issue of Zimbabwe took a fair amount of time'' during the G-8's ``outreach'' session with Africa.
``I made it very clear that the election result is not legitimate,'' Merkel said on German television, adding that African nations ``are asking us to keep our promises and continue to help them.''
G-8 leaders will issue a statement on aid policy as early as today after discussions that will also cover climate change and global economic growth. The EU plans to spend 1 billion euros ($1.6 billion) over two years to promote food production in poor nations, paying for fertilizers and seeds, Barroso said.
Record prices for basic foods such as wheat, corn and rice have sparked riots in Ivory Coast and Egypt. Surging food and fuel costs increased the number of hungry people worldwide by 50 million last year, the United Nations estimates. Already in 2008, corn climbed almost 60 percent and crude oil rose by more than 50 percent.
Overall growth in the advanced economies is likely to slide to 1.3 percent in 2008 from 2.7 percent last year, swelling their public deficits to 3.4 percent of gross domestic product from 2.2 percent, the International Monetary Fund forecasts.
Rising Deficits
Economic hardship is also eroding private wealth.
Credit losses and creeping inflation have wiped more than $10 trillion off the value of global stocks this year.
The financial squeeze in the rich world translates into less money to donate abroad, jeopardizing the G-8's 2005 pledge for it and other donors to increase annual development assistance to $130 billion by 2010 from $80 billion. Aid to Africa would double to $50 billion.
Total aid from 22 rich countries, excluding debt relief, rose as high as $104 billion in 2006, then sank to $96 billion last year under the weight of the economic slowdown, OECD figures show.
Bush Initiatives
Bush, criticized on the world stage for the war in Iraq, gets praise for a less publicized, softer foreign policy in Africa, where he's led efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and boost investment in the impoverished continent. Under Bush, U.S. aid to Africa is set to almost quadruple to $8.7 billion by 2010.
``In light of the Republican Party's aversion to foreign assistance, Bush's turnaround on this front has been noteworthy,'' said Charles Kupchan, professor of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington.
Bush initiatives include a five-year, $15 billion program started in 2003 that has made anti-AIDS treatments available to more than 1.7 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, up from 50,000 when the project started. Bush is asking Congress to double that funding to $30 billion over the next five years.
Statistical murk complicates the aid debate. While organizations like the OECD chart official figures and advocacy groups make their own tallies, the G-8 has no scorecard for keeping track of its pledges.
To fix that problem, Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda proposed setting up an ``accountability mechanism'' to name the countries that meet their commitments and shame the ones that don't.
To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net
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