TOYAKO, Japan—The Group of Eight rich nations will seek to convince a skeptical Africa on Monday that it is living up to promises to double aid to the world's poorest continent.
Underlining the importance of the issue, the G8 has invited seven African leaders to join the opening day of its annual summit, taking place at a plush hotel on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Climate change, record oil prices and a deteriorating global economy add up to a crowded agenda for the three-day meeting, but President George W. Bush, who has made aid to Africa a personal priority, said he would hold fellow leaders to account on that issue.
"We'll be very constructive in the dialogue when it comes to the environment—I care about the environment—but today there's too much suffering on the continent of Africa, and now's the time for the comfortable nations to step up and do something about it," Bush, banging the lectern for emphasis, said on Sunday at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
At its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the G8 agreed to double aid to Africa by 2010 as part of a wider drive to alleviate global poverty.
But a report last month by the Africa Progress Panel, which was set up to monitor implementation of the Gleneagles commitments, said that under current spending plans the G8 will fall $40 billion short of its target.
Japan vigorously rebutted a media report that the G8 was backsliding.
"Frankly speaking, we are a little annoyed by the recent press report," Foreign Ministry press spokesman Kazuo Kodama said. "That is completely false and unfounded."
Losing Traction?
This year marks the half-way point in a drive to reach by 2015 eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the U.N. General Assembly in September 2000 to reduce world poverty.
Kodama acknowledged that Africa was well behind target on health, but added: "G8 leaders will certainly deliver a strong and concrete message to help African countries to achieve MDGs."
Oxfam, a British charity and advocacy group, said an early version of a statement to be issued after this week's meeting would set up accountability mechanisms for subsequent summits, particularly in health, a step that it said was welcome.
But it said the G8—the United States, Japan, France, Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy and Russia—was making no major new financial commitments and was trying to water down a pledge at last year's summit in Germany to meet the Gleneagles goals.
With grain prices having doubled since January 2006, Africa needs more help, not less, activists say.
A preliminary World Bank study released last week estimated that up to 105 million more people could drop below the poverty line due to rising food prices, including 30 million in Africa.
In Liberia, the cost of food for a typical household jumped by 25 percent in January alone, increasing the poverty rate to over 70 percent from 64 percent, the study found.
"I cannot stand the idea that a food crisis born out of high energy prices and increasing global prosperity is starving the super-poor in Africa," rock star Bob Geldof, who will lobby G8 leaders at the summit, said in a statement last week.
Protests, Climate Change
As the leaders prepared to meet, about 100 anti-G8 protesters rallied in a field some 6 km (4 miles) from the luxury hotel where the summit is convening, to slam the rich nations' cozy club.
They planned to march toward the venue, but it was unclear how close they could get given extremely tight security. A busload of police was on standby as the protestors gave speeches while heavy rain fell.
"There is no end to the rise in oil prices and the G8 is not doing enough. They don't have a solution," said Renato Reyes, who came from the Philippines for the protest.
Many critics and even member countries question whether the group, formed in 1975 in the wake of the first oil crisis, has the right mix and number of members to be effective at solving complex global problems.
The G8 holds talks on Monday with the leaders of Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
On Tuesday they turn to economic and political problems such as North Korea's nuclear programs and the crisis in Zimbabwe.
The G8 is considering a stand-alone statement on Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe faces a political crisis after winning an election as the sole candidate.
The contentious issue of how to fight global warming will be the focus of an expanded meeting on Wednesday with China and India, two fast-growing economies that are pumping out more and more greenhouse gases.
Bush played down hopes of making headway this week unless Beijing and New Delhi changed tack and agreed to cap emissions.
Deep divisions within the G8 as well as between rich and poor nations have raised doubts about the chances for progress beyond last year's summit, where the G8 agreed to "seriously consider" a global goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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