Public Meeting: Cre8 in Lancaster

An inspiring sub-group discussion on setting up a cre8 summat action group was held during the public meeting.

People already had a number of imaginative ideas for positive social and environmental projects to take place locally during the weeks surrounding the G8 summit. Talk was of a community art project in Morecambe, a more-fun-for-young-people project in the small village of Galgate and other localities, and a building bridges between cultures project, amongst other things.

And this is just the beginning!

The ‘Make Poverty History’ coalition is raising three demands at this years G8 summit protests – end unjust trade rules; drop the debt; and increase aid. This bit here will examine Blair and Browns aid plans.


Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are presenting themselves as the saviours of Africa. Listening to them, one would be lead to believe that they are leading the world in the campaign to make poverty history. So what is the reality?


AID

The rulers of the world’s rich nations, including the UK have a history of broken promises on aid for developing countries. They have never reached their 1970 promise at the UN to spend 0.7 % GDP on aid. Instead aid was cut – in the UK first by Thatcher and then even more by Blair after new Labour’s 1997 election to an all time low of 0.24%.

Now with much fanfare, Gordon Brown is proposing that the Gleneagles G8 Summit support his scheme. This involves a doubling of Aid for Africa over the next ten years - an injection of around $209 billion dollars. Africa certainly deserves at least this sum, as reparations for all the years of robbery and exploitation by the rich powers.

But Brown is not offering any new money. Instead it will be borrowed on the international bond markets with future aid budgets pledged as collateral. This is called the IFF – International Financing Facility.

Thus these billions of dollars will have to be paid back, with extra interest, after 10 years. Aid budgets will then therefore be diverted back into the coffers of the world’s richest institutions. With the interest, this will probably cost around $316 billion. Thus Browns plans could actually lead to a $108 billion reduction in aid to poor countries over the lifetime of the IFF. Any benefits will come at a huge cost. For more about this, see:
 http://www.wdm.org.uk

So what are the alternatives? Where else could the G8 powers get this money?

One answer will be obvious to many: US spending on its illegal war in Iraq alone will go past $200 billion dollar mark by the end of this year, while Bush’s total military spending is currently bloated to around $500 billion every year. (Britain is currently spending about £7 billion alone on the Iraq adventure).

Even if we ignore these grotesque figures, Gordon Brown’s proposal is not even the best on the table at this summer’s G8.

After years of protest by Europe’s global justice and environmental movements, the French and German governments are proposing taxation of global currency speculation and aviation fuel. Not only could these taxes easily raise the billions needed for aid, they could also help address the dangers our world faces. Yet Blair, Brown and Bush are opposing these ideas.

Over $1.3 trillion is traded every day on the global currency markets, 80% of which is currency speculation - taking advantage of exchange rates to make huge profits. This devastates poor economies and strengthens the power of the rich elites over us all. A mere 0.25 percent tax on this would generate over $300 billion per year. Aviation fuel is currently untaxed, and represents the fastest growing cause of greenhouse gasses.

Here is what some of the UK’s development and environmental charities are saying about Blair and Brown's priorities at the G8 summit:

World Development Movement: “Gordon Brown should support Jacques Chirac's call for a currency speculation tax. Done properly this would bring in billions every year for the Millennium Development Goals, and make developing economies' less vulnerable to attack by currency speculators. The Chancellor is vastly overselling his own International Finance Facility initiative and pushing his pet project at the expense of these other more radical and genuinely fund raising proposals.”

Friends of the Earth: “The Chancellor should support Gerhard Schroeders' proposals for an aviation tax. The Government has said that the twin priorities for this year's G8 are climate change and Africa. An aviation tax would raise billions which could be spent on sustainable development, such as renewable energy technologies in developing countries. The tax could slow the growth of the massively polluting aviation industry, helping to tackle climate change which will hit poorest countries hardest."