Canada will promise $1.1 billion in new spending over five years for maternal and child health programs in poor countries, bringing total spending to almost $3 billion, a pledge sources say will extend beyond a five-year commitment.
The Star has learned that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will make a five-year commitment that will be “permanent and long-term.” He has signed off on renewing existing funding, estimated at nearly $2 billion over five years. He will add $1.1 billion over five years of new funding.
Non-governmental organizations had been hoping Harper’s so-called Muskoka pledge would be at least $1.4 billion.
Sources say that Canada had internally set a goal of $5 billion over five years for the G8. “If we are able to meet $5 billion, we will have met our objective.” But the final number from other G8 leaders won’t be unveiled until later Friday.
Canadian sources also said that non-G8 “developed” countries are going to kick in new money to help the international community attain what are development goals set by the United Nations.
The mechanism for the spending – whether it will be channeled through the Global Health Initiative or other means, such as bilateral or multilateral aid – is to be determined later, as is how the spending will break down, i.e. on community health workers, training, nutrition, vaccines, clean water initiatives, midwives or local health care providers, greater access to specialized hospital care or other means to slash the rate of deaths in poor countries.
In a bid to speed progress on the Millenium Development Goals, which have set 2015 as a deadline to have sharply reduced maternal, newborn and child mortality around the world, Harper has been pushing what is to be called the “Muskoka Initiative” as a centerpiece for the international summit.
At a late morning briefing to reporters broadcast from Huntsville, Harper’s communications director Dimitri Soudas said the moves by non-G8 countries and private foundations are welcome.
Already, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $1.5 billion over five years.
Details of the initiative will be discussed with seven African leaders who join the G8 leaders in an outreach session Friday afternoon.
“This is an important initiative which is urgent and obviously needs international attention,” said Soudas. “In these difficult economic times, G8 leaders have chosen to carefully focus on the most vulnerable where the needs are the greatest.”
Harper’s key negotiator for the G8 summit, Len Edwards, said Canada is pushing for all the money to be new spending, above and beyond existing government commitments, despite indications by some European countries that they want to count current spending pledges on the Global Health Initiative.
“We are looking for new resources we are not looking for re-channeled resources or previously announced resources. These will all be new resources,” predicted Edwards.
“We’re very confident that the G8 as a whole will embrace this initiative,” said Soudas said.
However, on the wider issue of aid, sources said the G8 countries were still divided over whether to recommit to a 2005 promise made at the summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to increase overseas aid by $50 billion by 2010—with half going to Africa. So far, the G8 countries have fallen $20 billion short on this commitment, aid groups calculate. Sources said Canada is arguing against a restatement of the Gleneagles commitment, while some other G8 leaders are for it.
The G8, which comprises many of the world’s largest industrial nations, is meeting Friday and Saturday morning in Huntsville. On Saturday, the G20, which includes the G8 as well leaders of newly emerging economic giants such as China and India, will convene two days of talks in Toronto.
Harper met personally early Friday with the leaders of Japan, Britain and Italy as leaders gathered in Huntsville to discuss aid, support for Africa and security issues in the Americas.
Harper welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who is attending his first summit, and expressed Canada’s support for Asian countries in their dealings with North Korea, which Harper termed “unpredictably dangerous,” according to Soudas.
Another first-time summit attendee is British Prime Minister David Cameron, who told Harper during a brief chat that he had enjoyed a morning swim in a Muskoka lake. Before convening the G8, Harper also had a personal talk with Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, who like the Canadian prime minister is a veteran of these international gatherings.
U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Toronto at 10:30 a.m. Friday. Bounding down the stairs of Air Force One, he was greeted by federal Transport Minister John Baird, Mayor David Miller and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. After passing by a ceremonial guard of Mounties in red serge, Obama climbed aboard a helicopter for the flight to Muskoka.
Earlier, he told reporters in Washington that leaders should use the G20 summit to consolidate on their successful effort to limit the damage from the world recession in 2008-09. Governments from G20 nations agreed to work cooperatively to boost the economy in the face of the downturn, pledging collectively to generate $5 trillion in stimulus spending.
“This weekend in Toronto I hope we can build on this progress by coordinating our efforts to promote economic growth, to pursue financial reform, and to strengthen the global economy,” Obama said before leaving the White House.
“We need to act in concert for a simple reason,” Obama said. “This crisis proved and events continue to affirm that our national economies are inextricably linked.
“And just as economic turmoil in one place can quickly spread to another, safeguards in each of our nations can help protect all nations.”
While all leaders attending the Ontario summits agree on the need for policies to help the economy bounce back from the recession, there are sharp disagreements separating Obama from European leaders on how long governments should continue to keep spending stimulus dollars. The Europeans, hoping to curb runaway government debt, want the G20 to emphasize the need for an “exit strategy” from the stimulus campaign, while Obama, facing still-high unemployment and a sputtering economy, wants G20 leaders to continue using public funds to accelerate economic growth.
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