News Brief

Christian aid agency hammers Bush for backtracking on debt

-14/6/04

Catholic aid agency CAFOD has condemned the "backtracking" of the G8, led by the US, on UK plans that would have given Africa a significant boost in efforts to fight poverty.

The G8 turned down a proposal put by the UK to give 100% debt cancellation to the worldís poorest countries. Instead, the G8 have promised to extend the debt relief scheme until 2006.

This represents the fourth such extension of a debt relief policy that has delivered less than a third of what was promised at the G8 Summit in Cologne 5 years ago.

Henry Northover, CAFOD policy analyst said: ìWhen it comes to standing shoulder to shoulder on Africa - ìthe scar on the worldís conscienceî - Bush has dismissed Blair.

ìThe G8ís backtracking on debt is shameful - a gross dereliction of previous promises made by the worldís richest countries to the worldís poorest. The G8 have ignored their commitment made two years ago at their summit in Canada to finance Africaís poverty reduction efforts to meet the internationally agreed development goals. Naked self-interest has won out at

the expense of the life chances of millions of the worldís poorest.

ìG8 could have wiped out Africaís debts and given more aid giving the continent a real prospect of achieving the Millennium Development Goals signed up to world leaders in the year 2000.

ìApparently the lives of Africans are less important than the strategic interests of the US. This week has witnessed G8 policy-making that ranks the worth of human lives according to the self-interest of the most powerful. It devalues us all.

ìIt is unjust that the grandiose declarations of this yearís G8 Summit mask a failing debt policy for Africa and a lavishly financed one for Iraq.î