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Save the Children's response to EU Summit outcome

Sunday 22 June 2008

Adrian Lovett, director of campaigns for Save the Children, said:

"Today European leaders have given an important reaffirmation of their commitments. All eyes will now be on the G8 in July to ensure they deliver on their promises to children around the world. This is not the time to be rowing back.

Families living in the poorest countries around the world are today facing a double catastrophe from rising food prices. This is threatening the entire fight against poverty and world leaders need to step up to this challenge.

Members of Save the Children across Europe called on their leaders to act at this summit. This shows their voices are being heard.  European leaders have encouraged member states to set out timetables for meeting their aid target. All member states should now publish timetables and deliver on their commitments. This summit sends an important message to other world leaders."

Background: Save the Children called on European Heads of State to:

• Honour their previous commitments to spend at least 0.7% of their GDP on development aid and set out a year on year timetable for achieving this.  This aid should be allocated in a way that is consistent with the Paris principles on aid effectiveness. 
• Ensure the development of concrete action plans for the achievement of the MDGs, with a particular focus on MDGs 4 and 5, to be delivered at the UN Summit in September this year. This should include commitments to greater investment in skilled health personnel, new milestones for cutting levels of child and maternal mortality by 2010 and more support for targeted nutrition programmes. 
• Commit to increase funding in support of education in conflict-affected fragile states (CAFS). At least 50 per cent of new financial commitments for education should be for CAFS.
• Take decisive action to address the global rise in food prices, which will worsen levels of poverty and malnutrition without corrective action.  To address the immediate crisis, European leaders need to ensure that the World Food Programme has adequate funding and that developing countries have sufficient resources to scale up social protection programmes for the poorest and most food insecure families.  In the medium term, there needs to be greatly increased investment in agriculture, to boost yields and meet increased demand.

2008 is a critical year for getting the world back on track to achieve the MDGs. Europe has the opportunity and the responsibility to show global leadership.