Aid Pledges at Summit Mislead, Charities Say
June 8, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Group of 8 summit, a coalition of leading industrial nations, has pledged $60-billion to fight poverty, AIDS, and other diseases — but most of that money stems from old promises that haven’t been fulfilled, reports Reuters.
Summit leaders from the United States, China, South Africa, France, and other countries touted the large figures. Activists, such as Oxfam and the Stop AIDS Campaign, counter that the aid packages include just $3-billion in fresh cash and that countries made the same promises in a summit at Glenagles, Scotland, in 2005, but have done little since.
The Irish rock star and poverty crusader Bono, said “I think it is deliberately the language of obfuscation. It is deliberately misleading.”
Summit leaders portrayed the announcement as public acknowledgment that they would fulfill pledges.
