Adrian Lovett

The 12-year-old girl seemed OK at first. She was telling me how - just half an hour earlier - she had walked up to the Save the Children reception centre on the Zimbabwe-South Africa border near Mesina. How she’d come from Beitbridge on the Zimbabwe side and led her 9-year-old sister across a mile or so of ‘no-man’s land’ bush to reach South Africa. She said she’d left behind her blind grandmother - her only carer it seemed, after her mother had died and her father had ‘run away’. She said she had come because she and her sister were hungry.

Read full post

It’s hard to describe the feeling on a day like this when all that you’ve been working for comes together. There’s huge pride. A little bit of surprise (I knew all the above was supposed to happen but you still never quite believe it will until it does). And more than a little trepidation.

Read full post

Somebody once defined a cynic as a believer who just keeps getting let down. No wonder cynicism abounds when the G8 circus comes to town. The leaders’ promises on aid from four years ago got repeated again yesterday – but with just a year until their deadline, there are few here who believe they will ever be met. As we said in our reaction, there was a distinctly half-hearted feel about last night’s summit conclusions on aid and development. With one or two exceptions, most leaders’ minds appeared to be elsewhere. At least expectations and reality are better matched this year than at previous summits.

Read full post

Boarding the Alitalia flight from Heathrow to Rome earlier this week, I saw the first signs that this G8 summit is likely to be – well, different. The side of the plane was emblazoned with the G8 summit official carrier badge and the words “From La Maddalena to L’Aquila”. This is a rather odd way of highlighting the last-minute shift of the meeting from a Sardinian island where an expensive summit centre had just been built, to the scene of this year’s earthquake where tens of thousands still live in tents and aftershocks continue to reverberate

Read full post

Barack Obama is standing three rows in front of me.  Here he is!

He’s saying this is an historic summit.  He is promising (sounds like) big new money for Africa.  He’s saying “our citizens are all hurting.  They need us to come together.”

Judge for yourself - read the official communique here:

http://www.londonsummit.gov.uk/resources/en/news/15766232/communique-020409

The communique is out. The talks are over. The leaders are doing their press conferences.

Read full post

It’s 3pm and you get the feeling things are starting to happen.  There’s more scuttling around by officials, journalists and others.  The nearest comparison to this experience I can make is being a (prospective) dad on the day of labour - hours of waiting with not much happening, and then a growing sense of momentum and then … actually no, that’s a rubbish analogy. 

How’s it looking?  Not clear how strong the communique will be on the need for leaders to keep their promises on aid - it will be really bad news if there’s any hint of backtracking there.  Still apparently some unresolved areas - will they agree to sell some IMF gold and use it (or at least some of it) to help poorer countries recover?  Will they be decisive in clamping down on tax havens - one of the promises most heavily trailed ahead of this summit?

Just got a hug from Bob Geldof.  He said to me: “Adrian!  SDRs, man!”  I said: “I know!” (I do.  Honest.)

The biggest rock star here though is clearly Obama.  I’m told he’s taking twice as long as he should to get from one meeting to the next because people want to have their photo taken with him in the corridors and are ignoring all protocol in order to get it.  I wonder how long this will last. As for the rest… Apparently Nicolas Sarkozy is given to grand gestures with his arms, Angela Merkel has been pretty quiet, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi has been very active in the discussions…

In theory Gordon Brown will do a press briefing in a few minutes, so things should be clearer soon…

The G20Voice bloggers are in the middle of a sea of desks where the world’s media are sitting.  You can tell the difference between us.  The press are all in smart casual gear with laptops and mobiles sitting at long desks looking serious.  The bloggers are all in smart casual gear with laptops and mobiles sitting at long desks looking serious with a “G20Voice” sign on their desk.

I’m off to look for a decision-maker.

Alarm goes off at 4.15am. I have to get to Docklands by 7 to get through security and everything. I wonder if Barack Obama started his day with a 5am banana in Princes Risborough station car park.

Read full post

It may look like a slightly dull wedding reception…but actually its a seething and vibrant hotbed of ideas and debate

So here we are, together at last. 50 bloggers from around the world, all in London to tell the world about the G20 summit from the inside. Or at least, from somewhere down the corridor.

Read full post

6am at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial

Read full post

Just arrived in Washington to meet with Save the Children colleagues as we plan the next steps in our biggest campaign ever. First time I’ve been here since this became Obamatown. I am determined to notice the difference - the blossom must surely be pinker, or the air a little fresher, or something. Bizarrely, in the hour-long queue for immigration at the airport I am sure I hear the recorded sound of birds singing. That’s one giant leap for the twitter generation.

Read full post

Twelve Zeroes and a Two. That’s better. 2 trillion dollars sounds a bit more digestible like that. Even quite fun. Like Three Men and a Baby, but with a bigger cast. A few more Tom Sellecks.

Read full post

Half way through an interview with a Russian TV news crew I couldn’t help being distracted by something moving in my peripheral vision. In the car park next to us a little electric vehicle was circling round and round, carrying a passenger with a slightly nervous smile.

Read full post

Today the G8 leaders arrived in town. Not the same town the media and the rest of us are in, though – the leaders themselves are about thirty miles up the road.

Read full post

I arrived in Hokkaido at 1.15am after 23 hours of travelling. The bus we were on for the last four hours made its way at a painfully slow pace through the increasingly mountainous landscape. I can see why they asked us to wear seat belts. It restrained the urge to get up and start walking instead, in the hope of arriving a little sooner.

Read full post