===========================================================================
G8 Declaration on Development and Africa
===========================================================================

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 8, 2008

G8 Declaration on Development and Africa

ÿÿWhite House News

ÿÿÿÿÿ G8 Summit 2008

Development

40. At the mid-point to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), although
progress has been made, significant challenges remain. We renew our
commitment to these goals by reinvigorating our efforts, and by
strengthening our partnerships with, as well as encouraging the efforts of,
the developing countries based on mutual accountability. The OECD/DAC
estimated the global increase of official development assistance (ODA) by
2010 at around US$ 50 billion a year. We are firmly committed to working to
fulfill our commitments on ODA made at Gleneagles, and reaffirmed at
Heiligendamm, including increasing, compared to 2004, with other donors,
ODA to Africa by US$ 25 billion a year by 2010. We commend the successful
replenishments of the resources of the International Development
Association, the African Development Fund and the Asian Development Fund in
which G8 countries provided nearly 75% of donor's contributions and we
acknowledge that ODA from G8 and other donors to Africa should be
reassessed and may need to be increased for the period after 2010, beyond
our current commitments. We expect that the UN High-level Meeting on MDGs
in September will provide a timely and important opportunity to demonstrate
commitment, to review progress, and to identify remaining challenges and
necessary coordinated international and country-led actions to overcome
them. We look forward to the UN Secretary-General's MDG Africa Steering
Group's recommendations. We also reiterate that our focus on development
cooperation should be on the promotion of good governance and
self-sustained, private sector-led economic growth in developing countries.

41. In tackling the development agenda, we will take a multi-faceted
approach, promoting synergies among MDG-related development sectors
particularly among health, water and education, in a framework of
sustainable development. In this regard, our work will be grounded in the
set of core principles of development policy that we endorsed at
Heiligendamm, including promoting good governance based on transparency and
rule of law and broad-based private sector-led growth. We will promote a
&participatory approach', involving all key players and stakeholders. We
will work together, and with other countries, in a complementary manner, to
address global health priorities and deliver on existing health
commitments. We will also work to improve human security through protection
and empowerment of individuals and communities. In addition, we emphasize
the importance of education, science and technology as a means to
facilitate development. We will promote gender equality and women's
empowerment as a principle in our development cooperation through
mainstreaming and specific actions. We will reaffirm during the Third High
Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness our commitment to make our aid more
effective based on the Paris Declaration principles. We continue to
encourage innovative approaches to leverage private investments in
connection with domestic public financing and official development
assistance.

42. We renew our commitment to support the development agenda agreed in the
Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development which underscored the
importance of mobilizing all available sources for development including
ODA, foreign direct investment and other private flows, trade, debt relief,
innovative financing, and domestic resources. We will contribute to the
success of the Follow-up Conference on Financing for Development in Doha
thereby giving fresh impetus to the Monterrey Agenda and the global
partnership launched there.

43. Peace and security are fundamental to states' ability to meet the needs
of their people. Fragile and post-conflict states remain farthest from
reaching the MDGs. Overcoming fragility and successful recovery requires
comprehensive, integrated and sustained international assistance, including
peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts where necessary, tailored to the
particular context. Coherent and complementary responses of all relevant
countries including the G8, and international organizations can break the
cycle of misery and despair and help set countries on the track to MDG
attainment.

44. We acknowledge the importance of facilitating remittance flows given
their development impacts. The G8 conference on remittances in Berlin in
November 2007 reviewed the actions agreed at the Sea Island Summit in 2004.
In this context, we will follow-up the seven recommendations adopted at the
Berlin conference on improving data, development impact, remittance
services, access to finance, innovative channels and on the creation of a
Global Remittances Working Group. We appreciate the work done by
international financial institutions in this regard and invite the World
Bank to facilitate the work of the group and provide for coordination.

Health

45. As a result of its growing political and financial commitment to fight
infectious diseases, the G8 has raised international awareness on global
health issues and contributed to remarkable improvements on health in
partner countries, notably access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and
care; stabilization of tuberculosis incidence; increased coverage of
innovative tools such as insecticide-treated nets against malaria;
impressive falls in measles deaths; and considerable progress on polio
which is closer to eradication than ever before. Investment through the
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria together with national
efforts, bilateral and other multilateral programs has enabled recipient
countries to save more than 2.5 million lives to date. The Second Voluntary
Replenishment Conference held in Berlin in 2007 raised US$ 9.7 billion for
expanded activities during the period 2008-2010. But many challenges remain
toward reaching the health-related MDGs. G8 members are determined to honor
in full their specific commitments to fight infectious diseases, namely
malaria, tuberculosis, polio and working towards the goal of universal
access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010. In this regard,
we welcome the report submitted by our health experts along with its
attached matrices, showing G8 implementation of past commitments to ensure
accountability. Building on the Saint Petersburg commitments to fight
infectious diseases, the experts' report sets forth the &Toyako Framework
for Action', which includes the principles for action, and actions to be
taken on health, drawing on the expertise of international institutions. We
also agreed to establish a follow-up mechanism to monitor our progress on
meeting our commitments.

46. In view of sustainability we aim at ensuring that disease-specific and
health systems approaches are mutually reinforcing and contribute to
achieving all of the health MDGs, and will focus on the following:

(a) We emphasize the importance of comprehensive approaches to address the
strengthening of health systems including social health protection, the
improvement of maternal, newborn and child health, the scaling-up of
programs to counter infectious diseases and access to essential medicines,
vaccines and appropriate health-related products. We reiterate our support
to our African partners' commitment to ensure that by 2015 all children
have access to basic health care (free wherever countries choose to provide
this). We underline the need for partner countries to work toward
sustainable and equitable financing of health systems. We also welcome the
efforts of the Providing for Health Initiative as well as the International
Health Partnership and the Catalytic Initiative. We reiterate our
commitment to continue efforts, to work towards the goals of providing at
least a projected US$ 60billion over 5 years, to fight infectious diseases
and strengthen health. Some countries will provide additional resources for
health systems including water.

(b) Reliable health systems require a reliable health workforce. To achieve
quantitative and qualitative improvement of the health workforce, we must
work to help train a sufficient number of health workers, including
community health workers and to assure an enabling environment for their
effective retention in developing countries. In this regard, we encourage
the World Health Organization (WHO) work on a voluntary code of practice
regarding ethical recruitment of health workers. The G8 members will work
towards increasing health workforce coverage towards the WHO threshold of
2.3 health workers per 1000 people, initially in partnership with the
African countries where we are currently engaged and that are experiencing
a critical shortage of health workers. We will also support efforts by
partner countries and relevant stakeholders, such as Global Health
Workforce Alliance, in developing robust health workforce plans and
establishing specific, country-led milestones as well as for enhanced
monitoring and evaluation, especially for formulating effective health
policies. In this context, we take note of the Kampala Declaration and
Agenda for Global Action adopted in March 2008 at the First Global Forum on
Human Resources for Health.

(c) We note that in some developing countries, achieving the MDGs on child
mortality and maternal health is seriously off-track, and therefore, in
country-led plans, the continuum of prevention and care, including
nutrition should include a greater focus on maternal, new born and child
health. Reproductive health should be made widely accessible. The G8 will
take concrete steps to work toward improving the link between HIV/AIDS
activities and sexual and reproductive health and voluntary family planning
programs, to improve access to health care, including preventing
mother-to-child transmission, and to achieve the MDGs by adopting a
multisectoral approach and by fostering community involvement and
participation.

(d) As part of fulfilling our past commitments on malaria, we will continue
to expand access to long-lasting insecticide treated nets, with a view to
providing 100 million nets through bilateral and multilateral assistance,
in partnership with other stakeholders by the end of 2010.

(e) To maintain momentum towards the historical achievement of eradicating
polio, we will meet our previous commitments to maintain or increase
financial contributions to support the Global Polio Eradication Initiative,
and encourage other public and private donors to do the same.

(f) To build on our commitments made on neglected tropical diseases at St
Petersburg, we will work to support the control or elimination of diseases
listed by the WHO through such measures as research, diagnostics and
treatment, prevention, awareness-raising and enhancing access to safe water
and sanitation. In this regard, by expanding health system coverage,
alleviating poverty and social exclusion as well as promoting adequate
integrated public health approaches, including through the mass
administration of drugs, we will be able to reach at least 75% of the
people affected by certain major neglected tropical diseases in the most
affected countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, bearing in mind the
WHO Plan. With sustained action for 3-5 years, this would enable a very
significant reduction of the current burden with the elimination of some of
these diseases.

(g) We support ongoing work to review travel restrictions for HIV positive
people with a view to facilitating travel and we are committed to follow
this issue.

Water and Sanitation

47. Good water cycle management is crucial in order to address the issue of
water, which has a cross-sectoral nature. In this regard, acknowledging the
need to accelerate the achievement of the internationally agreed goals on
water and sanitation, we will reinvigorate our efforts to implement the
Evian Water Action Plan and will review it on the basis of a progress
report prepared by our water experts by the next Summit. We will discuss
with African partners the development of an enhanced implementation
strategy. Moreover, we will promote integrated water resource management
and the concept of &Good Water Governance', with particular focus on
Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific, by taking necessary actions such as
strengthening of trans-boundary basin organizations, sharing of
water-related expertise and technology with developing countries, support
for capacity building for water-related initiatives, promotion of data
collection and utilization, and adaptation to climate change. We also
acknowledge that ensuring adequate water supplies for human, industrial and
environmental uses while minimizing the impacts of extreme hydrological
variability are critical to protecting human health, promoting sustainable
economic growth, and ensuring peace and security.

(a) We call upon national governments, in this International Year of
Sanitation, to prioritize access to sanitation, building on the initiatives
agreed at conferences on sanitation in Asia-Pacific and Africa. In this
regard, we support the leadership role of the African Ministers' Council on
Water and the action of the African Development Bank.

(b) We will support efforts to improve the governance of the water and
sanitation sector with a view to ensure that monitoring and reporting, at
the international and national levels, are improved and that institutions
responsible for delivering water and sanitation services are more capable,
accountable and responsive to the needs of users.

Education

48. Strengthening the capacity of individuals, organizations, institutions
and societies is the key to sustainable development and growth, therefore
education in developing countries should be reinforced at all levels.
Accordingly, we attach importance to life-long learning and a holistic
approach to the education system, namely, continuing to prioritize
universal completion of quality primary education by boys and girls, while
responding to the need for striking a good balance between primary and
post-primary education in relation with national constraints and economic
needs. We are committed to addressing the issues of shortage, retention and
management of teachers in Africa as well as improving learning outcomes. We
will work further to improve access to and the quality of education through
capacity development of teachers as well as community involvement. Teacher
training should be intensified emphasizing the development of needed
competencies and skills. Since school health and school feeding could
improve both school enrolment and children's wellbeing, we will promote
synergies with other development sectors.

49. We remain committed to Education for All(EFA) and the international
agencies which implement it and support the efforts of the Fast Track
Initiative(FTI) for universal primary education. We, along with other
donors, will continue efforts to mobilize bilateral and multilateral
resources to meet the shortfalls of FTI- endorsed countries estimated by
the FTI Secretariat at around US$1billion for 2008, while supporting the
improvement of its effectiveness through an external evaluation. There
should be a strong emphasis placed on the quality of education and program
effectiveness.0