The current economic crisis has dealt a hard blow against the already lackluster efforts to implement the MDGs. We have already dealt with the fact that the Financial Industry Receives 10 Times More Money in 1 year than Poor Countries Receive in 49 Years. It doesn't look any better in the future. A Reuter's story by Laura MacInnis back on July looked at the dialogue between the G8 and the World Bank and determined that 2009 will remain dangerous a year.
The Group of Eight nations should not presume a global economic recovery is near, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a letter to G8 host Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi obtained by Reuters on Monday.
In his letter, Zoellick stressed the July 8-10 summit should also "focus on the plight of the poor in the developing world."
In the year to June 30, the World Bank committed $60 billion in aid to developing nations, much of it for infrastructure projects. Zoellick said wealthy nations should not hold back on further aid commitments in spite of the economic uncertainty.
There has been some signs that things may be staying the same. G-20 Ministers Back Stimulus, but Pay Limits Are Elusive BUSINESS / GLOBAL BUSINESS | September 06, 2009 By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and JULIA WERDIGIER
The world's financial ministers vowed to keep their multi-trillion-dollar stimulus efforts in place, but at a meeting failed to agree on any firm limits on bankers' bonuses.
Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, said members of the G-20 “have to make sure that we finish the job we started.” He added: “There is still a lot of risk, a lot of uncertainty and a lot of obstacles to negotiate.”
So what kind of statement can be made to influence how the world's economic leaders look at the plight and potential of developing countries?
Well the folks from ONE have an idea. When the world's Presidents and Prime Ministers fly to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 24 for the G20 Summit (the latest in a series of high-level talks on the global economy, covering everything from international trade to the rules governing financial markets), ask that the G20 to host an upcoming summit in Africa and put that continent's potential on the political map.
ONE argue that if an African country is picked next to host an upcoming G20 summit, it would bring new attention to the role Africa can and must play in any successful global economic recovery. This blog has no problem supporting that idea having long featured TED Talks Africa, The Next Chapter which proves the point.
Click the link to add your name to our petition
The petition reads:
Dear G20 Leaders,
Please hold an upcoming G20 Summit in Africa, and see for yourselves how its one billion people can be part of the global economic recovery.
David Lane of ONE tells us that,
The Africa I've seen is ready to join the global marketplace and help drive economic growth. And its agricultural resources, if fully developed, could feed the world. In a recent visit to Ethiopia—where malaria deaths have been halved in only two years—I visited the new Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), a first of its kind electronic, international exchange for coffee, grain and other agricultural products. The ECX is entrepreneurialism at its best, helping farmers and traders get fair prices for their goods.
This kind of success is being repeated across Africa. Through smart aid and African-led innovation, poverty and disease are giving way to trade and opportunity. Now, we need the leaders of the G20 nations to go to Africa and see it for themselves.
Tell the G20 that one of their upcoming meetings must be in Africa:
Here is Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin in a 2007 TEDTalk outlining the ambitious vision that became the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX).
