G8 Policy Paper

July 2012

G8/G20 Task Force Analysis of Camp David Accountability Report (CDAR)

2012 G8 Summit
For more information, please contact: John Ruthrauff Director, International Advocacy InterAction jruthrauff@interaction.org

In advance of the 2012 Group of Eight Summit held at Camp David, the G8/G20 NGO Task Force proposed recommendations for leadership on humanitarian and international development issues, including calls to guide the G8s self-directed reporting process for accountability and transparency. The following is a brief analysis of the Camp David Accountability Report (CDAR) in light of those recommendations. Background on additional policy recommendations on food security, agriculture and nutrition; maternal, newborn and child health; and HIV /AIDS may be found at www.InterAction.org.

Executive Summary
Please direct comments or questions about the statement to: Geraldine Ryerson-Cruz Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst, World Vision US gryerson@worldvision.org

Now in its third year, the report compiled and released by the G8 Accountability Working Group (AWG) to track donor progress against commitments provided more in-depth and country-by-country data than previous versions. As such, the Camp David Accountability report released in May 2012 is a substantial improvement from the weak 2011 Deauville report. The G8/G20 NGO Task Force recommends addressing accountability shortcomings through these reforms: 1. Direct the Accountability Working Group (AWG) to receive input from other international organizations, recipient governments and a broad spectrum of civil society to inform their reporting. Due to the lack of transparency the breadth of input is not known in 2012. 2. Ensure the AWG publicly releases the terms of reference for each G8 expert group, and the names and affiliation of all experts when they are selected. Meeting schedules for such groups and a detailed agenda should be publicly available at least 20 days before each meeting. These were not made available in 2012. 3. Direct the AWG to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of all G8 commitments in order to devise performance indicators consistent with the Muskoka Accountability Reports criteria for commitments. This recommendation was partially met in 2012.

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4. Make public the AWG annual report 30 days before annual summits and release a schedule of future reports, with provisional topics, through 2015. Release a draft of the accountability report with a clear process and point of contact for input. Institute the same advance release and reports schedule publication rules for all future years. The report was released after the 2012 G8 Summit concluded.

ANALYSES
On Content The G8s affirmation of its own accountability process is commendable and consistent with a growing global trend towards transparency and inclusion, and results-driven approaches including the agreements reached at the Busan High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. The main focus of this years report is on the LAquila Food Security Initiative of 2009. It includes an in-depth review of progress towards improving the aid effectiveness of the LAquila donors in operationalizing the five guiding principles (Rome Principles) for focusing investments in agricultural development on comprehensive, multilateral where appropriate, sustained and coordinated country-owned plans. The G8 is also to be commended for initiating its new self-reporting scorecard intended to catalogue indicators of progress in specific focus areas, and for including more in-depth information such as detailed reporting tables to give a more comprehensive picture of G-8 members actions. On accountability on G8 commitment The G8 has made mixed progress in fulfilling its commitments to international health and development, as the report reveals. Overall, the CDAR highlights the need for swifter disbursements and continued public sector investment in agriculture and health, and underscores the need for more international nutrition funding. It focused mainly on food security commitments, particularly the lAquila Food Security Initiative of 2009. The report also tracked progress made by the G8 toward fulfilling its commitments on global health, although this portion of the document did not demonstrate the same level of analytical rigor found in the aforementioned food security section. Past promises on health were listed in an annex to the document, but without comparable analysis. --On lAquila and Food Security: Less than half (49%) of G8 donors pledges to AFSI have been disbursed, although 99 percent of 1 these pledges have been committed overall. Neither the CDAR nor the G8 communiqu outlined how and when countries will fulfill these funding commitments, with just seven months to go before the deadline. Further, the European Union declined to provide data on its funding for this report. Alignment of donors LAquila pledges with Country Investment Plans (CIP) is improving, according to the report, with room for improvement for all aid to agriculture to help meet the 50 percent financing gap among the 30 publically-available CIPs, on average. In other words, in 30 countries national governments have done their parts to create peer-reviewed, costed agricultural development strategies but they remain underfunded by half. This report acknowledged developing countries themselves are

See CDAR, footnote 8 on p. 22: Looking exclusively at G-8 AFSI donors, the G-8 has disbursed 49 percent of its total $15.2 billion pledge; the European Union has not reported its disbursements and thus was not included in either the disbursement or total G8 pledge calculation.

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making contributions to increase food security funding as part of their national plans, slightly above the 25 percent on average that they also receive from donor nations. This report acknowledges that the majority of donors are failing to target their investments towards smallholder farmers, especially women, who grow the majority of the food in the global South. We call for the data to be disaggregated so the world can see what aid reaches smallholder farmers and particularly women, as a step to better accountability on this front. Future accountability reports should also include robust accountability instruments for the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and private-sector commitments. We recommend that the G8 continue to apply its new scorecard format in the future, and suggest that future versions be strengthened with input from recipient countries and civil society partners. --On Nutrition: We were pleased to see a chapter dedicated to nutrition for the first time in an Accountability Report, and urge G8 leaders to continue and strengthen this important chapter in future accountability reports. The G8 identified the need to improve nutrition and underscored the positive impact of these investments. The outline of current nutrition funding is welcome as a baseline to measure against in the future. However, it clearly shows collective G8 investment in nutrition is a mere $460 million. By comparison, it would take some $6.9 billion a year over 3 years that to save 15 million children from stunting. The $460 million amount falls woefully short of what is needed to make the strides we know are possible against the chronic malnutrition that kills nearly 2.6 million children each year and condemns another 170 million children to the lifelong impact of stunting and their countries to its economic consequences. The scorecard would be strengthened by including nutrition indicators such as stunting, and marking progress on meeting nutrition targets, to better measure impact and achievements where they matter most. --On Health: The Accountability Report examines four key health commitments including the Muskoka Initiative on maternal, newborn and child health, fighting infectious disease and improving health systems, mobilizing support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and support for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The G8 reports that it is on track to provide a minimum of an additional $5 billion to meet its commitment to finance the Muskoka Initiative based on self-reported annual targets over baseline budgets and progress against these targets to date. The Accountability Report asserts that the G8 appears to be on track to provide at least $60 billion to fight infectious diseases and improve health systems by 2012 even though cumulative 2008-2010 bilateral health ODA disbursements were only slightly more than $37 billion. The G8 has contributed over $17 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which accounts for 78 percent of all contributions to the Fund. Between 2006 and 2008, G8 nations provided nearly $2 billion to support the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

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Despite its improved focus on certain key areas such as monitoring food security promises, the CDAR neglected to trace each G8 commitment from inception to achievement. The G8s 2005 commitment, for example, of Developing and implementing a package for HIV prevention, treatment and care, with the aim of maximum possible universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment for all who need it by 2010, is referenced in the Camp David report, but without any assessment of its progress.

On the reporting process Lacking systems to ensure outside input, the G8s accountability reports have yet to reach their potential for providing insights on how to improve and showcase ODA effectiveness. Each accountability report so far has been the product of preparatory processes that continue to fail to meet basic standards of transparency and inclusion. Failing to identify working groups and their members, releasing a schedule of meeting dates and agendas, and identifying parties to the consultation process are all process issues that continue to undermine the G8s accountability mechanism and its potential to improve the substance of its reports (See InterAction Policy Brief (http://www.interaction.org/document/2012-g8-background-policy-brief-accountability) for needed reforms). The G8 pays a price for a lack of openness and inclusion. During the economically challenging times, maintaining domestic support for Overseas Development Assistance in donor countries during these economically challenging times might be easier if the G8 reports were better informed by outside input and gained greater attention. This would help make the case for effective ODA. These documents have the potential to substantively refute critics arguments against aid. Unfortunately, significant potential for positive impact from the Camp David report was lost due to the reports delayed release until after the Summit concluded. This denied the opportunity for discourse on the actual progress and weaknesses around G8 commitments leading into and during the meeting. On a positive note, it is clear that the Accountability Working group is working diligently to incorporate aideffectiveness principles in meeting its commitments. Especially noteworthy are actions to align the assistance provided by G8 members with the plans and priorities of each country partner and to work towards multi-donor cooperation. These are all steps in the right direction and ought to be reflected by a timely and transparent preparation process.

Listed below are the members of the G8/G20 Task Force who contributed to the statement: ActionAid USA InterAction 1,000 Days Action Network Trade Union Sustainable Development Unit World Vision