Western countries fail to meet Gleneagles aid pledges

Development groups issued a strong warning last night that lives in Africa were being lost as a result of broken aid promises from the west's richest nations.

Developed countries were coming under pressure to make good on the pledges made at the Make Poverty History summit held at Gleneagles in 2005 after the annual monitoring report on aid found that financial assistance had fallen well short of the levels envisaged.

The Paris-based Organisation Economic Cooperation and Development said donors had increased aid by $30bn since 2005 – but had fallen $19bn short of the target for 2010 set at Gleneagles.

Under pressure from Tony Blair when he was British prime minister, the G8 also agreed at Gleneagles to increase aid to Africa by $25bn by 2010, but the OECD said only $11bn had been delivered. It warned that aid flows to Africa were likely to decelerate in the years ahead and were likely to be outpaced by population increases.

Oxfam's head of advocacy and policy, Kirsty Hughes, said: "2010 was meant to be the year of celebration – when the promises made at Gleneagles G8 to Make Poverty History were to be met. Yet in five years rich nations have barely increased aid and are lining up big cuts for the next few years – cuts that will cost lives.

"Although many rich countries are suffering from economic hardships, poorer nations are being hit doubly hard. Cutting aid to these countries means depriving poor people of clean water, life-saving medicines and food."

The OECD, a club of rich developed countries, said the financial constraints imposed by the global recession were only slightly to blame for the broken pledges.

"Only a little over $1bn of the shortfall can be attributed to lower than expected gross national income levels due to the economic crisis. The remaining gap of $18bn was due to donors that did not meet their Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) commitments," the review says.

Britain's aid rose to 0.56% of gross national income (GNI) after increasing by almost 20% between 2009 and 2010, according to the report, but many other European countries – including Germany and Italy – fell well short of the Gleneagles commitment to raise aid spending to 0.51% of GNI by 2010.

The OECD warned that a comprehensive survey of donors' future spending plans pointed to slower aid growth ahead. Development assistance is planned to grow by an inflation-adjusted 2% per year between 2011 and 2013 compared with 8% on average over the past three years. Aid to Africa was projected to increase by 1% a year in real terms compared with 13% a year in the three years to 2010.

Wednesday's report showed that in 2010 total aid reached a record $128.7bn, an increase of 6.5% when adjusted for inflation. Bilateral aid to Africa rose by 3.6% overall, but fell by 0.1% when debt relief grants were excluded from the calculations. The OECD said the failure to meet the $25bn target for African aid had been caused by the "poor performance" of several donors who provide a large chunk of their financial help to the world's poorest continent.

"When countries make aid pledges, they must do the political, budgetary and planning work needed to sustain them," said Brian Atwood, who chairs of the OECD's development assistance committee. "Too often, donors commit without the backing that will enable these promises to be kept. We are promoting a new code of good pledging practice to ensure that promises are backed by plans.

"The volume of aid is a crucial factor, but there are other forms of assistance that are not classified as ODA, such as some loans and guarantees, that provide critical support to low income countries. And the contribution of new donors is important as well. We are building broader and deeper global partnerships – sharing collective knowhow to alleviate poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals."

Jamie Drummond, executive director of non-profit organisation ONE, said the figures "paint a worrying picture about Africa not receiving the share of aid increases it was promised by world leaders, despite overall historic highs for global aid".

He added: "The OECD predicts that aid to Africa will increase at just 1% per year in real terms over the coming years, despite strong performance by countries like the UK. This is worrying and must be addressed as a matter of urgency by the G8, G20 and all OECD countries."

While Africans "will only be able to pull themselves out of poverty through smart partnerships on trade, investment and good governance, the region is still in great need of the effective smart aid it was promised", said Drummond.

"The increases that have been delivered are being put to great use, and we have the living proof to show it: 2.4 million fewer children dying before their fifth birthdays in 2009 than in 2004; 46 million more children in school since 1999." He added: "These statistics show keeping aid promises is worth the world – and that breaking them should be deemed immoral."