Earth-Info.Net is waiting to see what comes out of the current
G8 summit in Evian...
Debt relief,
trade subsidies, export credits +
access to essential medicines are all possible areas for pledges, but the
devil will be in the detail and there has sadly been relatively little
implementation following previous fine-sounding agreements.
On this topic... see
Jubilee Research +
CAFOD's report entitled "
Did the G8 Drop the Debt? Five years after the Birmingham Human Chain, what has been achieved, and what more needs to be done?"
In brief, this report calls for
an end to the privatisation + liberalisation conditions linked to debt relief that harm the poor, the creation of a
fair procedure for poor countries if they become insolvent in the future, highlights that only
8 countries have received full debt relief and calls for the creation of a
World Debt Day.
There is also a rumour Jacque Chirac is proposing that a
tax on weapons should be used to feed the poor (in a modification of the long-proposed
Tobin Tax on currency speculation) and I will report on this in more detail as soon as possible...
See the
Publish What you Pay and
Wyn Grant's Common Agriculture Policy website to get a feel for what this and similar proposals could be an effort to divert attention away from...