Oxfam reaction to the G8 Accountability Report 2013 published today

In response to the G8’s Accountability Report, which records the G8’s progress in meeting its promises, Oxfam’s G8 campaign lead Adam Musgrave said:

“Oxfam welcomes the G8’s ambition to be accountable and measure progress on development commitments, but with people’s lives hanging in the balance the G8 must be honest where there are hard truths to face so it can turn things around."

Oxfam is deeply concerned that lack of progress on public investment in agriculture – vital to ending hunger – has been entirely overlooked in a year where the G8 has promised to prioritise helping the one in eight people going to bed hungry tonight.

Musgrave said: “With a quarter of their food security commitments yet to materialize, the G8 is on the brink of failing the one in eight people going to bed hungry. They are wrong to imagine the New Alliance – with a focus entirely on private sector investment - is a get out of jail free card, because it cannot replace the public funding desperately needed to help ordinary families and farmers to escape hunger.”

The report’s overall good and satisfactory ratings also mask huge under investment in health and education, as well as food security. On health, the ratings themselves show that the G8 is being inconsistent.

Musgrave continued: “The G8 is clearly missing the point when they claim excellence on strengthening health systems in the poorest countries; there is little point in having a good hospital without trained nurses and doctors."

Read more detailed analysis from Oxfam.