29 February 2008
The 2007 G8 summit took place in Heiligendamm from 6-8 June. The main themes were the global economy and Africa. The African part of the agenda concentrated on HIV and AIDS, good governance, peace and security and economic growth. The full text of the Heiligendamm G8 Communique entitled “Growth and Responsibility in Africa” can be found on the German G8 Presidency website.
The Summit took forward the agenda established at Gleneagles 2005 by reiterating the 2005 commitments and by agreeing specific actions to take them forward, including committing more funds to tackle AIDS. There was significant progress on climate change.
On climate change: The UNFCCC is the forum through which all binding commitments to combat global warming will be agreed, and the G8 has given a strong signal for talks to begin developing a comprehensive, global post-2012 framework - to be agreed by 2009. The G8 agreed that global stabilisation will be a key part of that agreement, and that all G8 countries will consider halving emissions by 2050. Importantly, the G8 also agreed that all major emitters should be involved in the process. This represents a major achievement
On HIV/ AIDS: The G8 reiterated its commitment to universal access for AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010 and committed to provide $60 billion over the next few years to support this effort. There was also a commitment of $1.5 billion to help deliver universal access of services to prevent mother to child transmission, $1.8 billion for paediatric treatments and $1.5 billion for family planning. In addition, the G8 reaffirmed their commitment to work with other donors to replenish the Global Fund and to provide long-term predictable funding to the Global Fund in support of national AIDS Plans.
On Education: The G8 reaffirmed that no country seriously committed to ‘Education for All’ will be thwarted because of the lack of resources. They committed to work with partners to finance shortfalls in FTI endorsed countries, estimated at around $500m for 2007, and to fund long-term plans, particularly in low income countries and fragile states i.e. those countries with the greatest needs. This endorses what the UK has been pushing for over the last year.
On Health: The G8 placed emphasis on strengthening health systems and on coordination between Bretton Woods Institutions, WHO and global health funds. The G8 also committed to address problems of human resource capacity in the health sector.
On Peace Keeping, The G8 agreed to find solutions to the funding of African-led peace keeping operations and for the G8 to work to build up their capacity.
In all, the outcomes of the summit were pleasing and many of the UK priorities were reflected in the final declaration. However the commitments did not go far enough to satisfy the G8’s critics that the G8 is serious about keeping to the Gleneagles commitments.
The 2007 G8 Summit also saw the development of a process to involve several key emerging economies in a dialogue about the biggest challenges the global economy is facing today. The Heiligendamm Process is a dialogue between the member states of the G8 and Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa (the G5). The aim is to achieve tangible results within two years.
The dialogue proposes to discuss four main areas:
The Heiligendamm Process is an important first step for more structured engagement between the G8 and the key emerging economies - critical to ensuring we are all able to meet our shared global responsibilities including development and climate change and achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
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