2013-05-19T10:54:19-04:00 Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=adrian-lovett Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Adrian Lovett Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2732148 2013-02-21T07:56:16-05:00 2013-04-23T05:12:01-04:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
There's a big question over whether David Cameron's reported comments on the way back from his India trade mission, in which appeared to suggest using more aid money for military spending, actually amounted to much. But in the fevered pre-budget climate in Britain, they have caused excitement and alarm.

The fact is, channelling aid money through defence budgets on any scale would quickly hit a large brick wall in the form of the internationally-agreed definition of Official Development Assistance (which Downing Street have made clear the prime minister does not want to change). As Alex Evans points out in his blog on Global Dashboard, the rules as to what can and cannot be deemed 'aid' (or Overseas Development Assistance - ODA - as the wonks call it) are pretty strict. The only spending that would be allowed through the MOD on peacekeeping or security is the sort of spending that the Department for International Development is undertaking already (human rights, rehabilitation of demobilised soldiers, mine removal etc.). Indeed, DFID is currently ranked as the most transparent and effective development department in the world and the UK's security-focused aid spending was recently ranked as above average by the Center for Global Development; above the likes of the United States, Netherlands and Sweden.

However, while in truth there is little chance of Mr Cameron diverting a large amount of aid money to pay for defence, the way his comments have been seized upon risk setting up a false debate, with those backing aid spending and those backing defence spending at each others' throats.

Look at the numbers. As our neat little tax calculator shows, a UK taxpayer earning £30,000 per year will pay £7,065 in tax. Of that, £67 will go to the aid budget and £403 towards defence. That leaves £6,595 for everything else. A proper debate about government spending should surely recognise that pitching defence spending against aid is like robbing a pretty hard-up Peter to pay an even more impoverished Paul. If you want to find where the money is in the UK budget, you don't go to aid and you probably don't go to defence either.

As for relieving poverty in countries hit by conflict: everyone who has worked in development knows it is hard, but it can be done. The DFID is right to look more closely at this, as the secretary of state Justine Greening promised to do when she set out her thinking at a ONE event two weeks ago.

Reducing poverty through effective aid bolsters the UK's strategic and foreign policy interests. For relatively small amounts of money the UK is able to play a key role in some of the most vulnerable and unstable parts of the planet. As former chief of defence staff Lord Stirrup has argued, "Helping people in these areas to self-reliance... to lift themselves out of poverty and to counter ignorance, will reduce the risk of conflict".

The UK government is showing global leadership in meeting the UN target to spend 0.7% of income on development in the year that we host the G8. Transparent aid, monitored for effectiveness, has had an enormous catalytic effect. Globally, extreme poverty has halved and child deaths dropped by more than 40% just two decades. The day when aid is no longer needed is getting closer. To turn away now would be in nobody's interest.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2011493 2012-10-24T16:02:54-04:00 2012-12-24T05:12:02-05:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
As Mario Cuomo said, you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. Fast forward to late 2012 and you have to assume that when the prime minister thinks of Europe, lofty verses quickly dry up. A mountain of debt. An impending budget showdown. Few friends on the continent. A hostile press at home. Prosaic in the extreme.

Today, David Cameron meets Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council. The two men might find more in common than they expect. First, Van Rompuy is a poet himself - his published volume of haikus having received a warm reception (though he has evidently failed to impose on EU communique drafters the discipline of the 17-syllable form). More importantly, Cameron and Van Rompuy are both proven champions of the fight against global poverty, by one simple measure - their commitment to the 0.7% aid promise. Van Rompuy ensured Belgium reached the target when he was prime minister. Cameron has repeated his iron commitment to get there in March next year. They are members of an elite and honourable club.

The British prime pinister can burnish those credentials today, while also perhaps recapturing a little of that old optimism for what Europe can do well together. When Van Rompuy asks for what Cameron would like to do to the small slice of the next seven-year EU budget that is earmarked for fighting global poverty and disease, I hope his response will be shorter than a Japanese poet's. In fact, a one-word answer would do: nothing. Keeping that proposal investment intact, and ensuring it is protected from the negotiating storm that is about to hit Europe's budget process, would enable Europe to stand for something bigger than itself and to get life-saving support to some of the poorest people in the world.

The European Parliament yesterday agreed that the European Commission's proposals for development and humanitarian aid - taking just 6% of proposed EU spending - were "the bare minimum". Britain's own Department for International Development has praised the quality and value-for-money of EU aid. But the British negotiating position on the EU budget is undergoing a bout of cognitive dissonance. The UK position on the overall EU budget would shave €200bn off spending from 2014 to 2020. If applied evenly across the various headings, this would translate to a €9 billion cut to aid for the world's poorest. This move would have a devastating effect on millions of lives around the world. It would not be the action of a champion of aid.

The International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, implies this will not happen, saying that development is one of the UK's priority areas within an overall squeezed budget. But without a clear commitment to protect that aid money - technically speaking, the Development Cooperation Instrument and the European Development Fund - anything could happen and it is hard not to fear the worst.

Today is the prime minister's opportunity to put that right. We hope he will stick to the principles he has displayed since his election: defending the aid budget and ensuring it is ever more effective, and not trying to balance the books on the backs of the poorest. The best part is this: making that promise won't cost the British taxpayer a penny. As the UK has already committed to spending 0.7% of national income (and no more) on aid, and as Britain's contribution to EU aid is counted as part of that 0.7% commitment, increasing EU aid will not cost the UK any more. But it will leverage increased contributions from right across Europe as other member states pay their share.

If cuts implied by the UK government's position were to go ahead, 5 million people will not get connected to clean drinking water, over 1 million people will not have proper sanitation and nearly 1 million children will not being vaccinated against measles. Cuts cost lives. The prime minister is a development champion at home. He has yet to show whether he will do so in Europe. He made a promise to the world's poorest. Today he can deliver.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1883490 2012-09-14T19:00:00-04:00 2012-11-14T05:12:01-05:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
The announcement is made and the crowd erupts in cheering. Supporters of the cause hug in the front row as confetti explodes from behind the stage. An open-top bus crawls past with some of the major players on the top. They wave to the crowd, who respond in kind. Joy is unconfined. All the hard work, long hours by those volunteers and professionals and investment from generous taxpayers has resulted in millions of lives changed forever around the globe. Meanwhile, in front of TV screens in homes near and far, people smile at each other and say, "We did that". A golden moment to end a golden summer.

Our Olympic and Paralympic heroes deserved every bit of the great parade we saw last week. But why didn't this celebration happen again yesterday? That's when the UN announced that the number of children dying each year under the age of five has fallen by 41% since 1990. While 12 million died in 1990, just under seven million lives were lost in 2011. That's 14,000 a day less than were dying in 1990. The progress made in reducing child deaths must be one of the biggest success stories of the last decade. Yet there was no tickertape parade. Good news can often pass us by, or not even make the news at all. But after a summer of so much of it, why not keep it up?

To anyone who has campaigned against poverty and an end to avoidable child deaths for the last decade or more, these are incredible statistics. Even more encouraging is the fact that the most rapid progress is being made in sub-Saharan Africa. And in some countries, the reduction is spectacular. Liberia, Rwanda, Malawi, Madagascar and Ethiopia have all cut mortality by more than 60 per cent. All of us - from ordinary citizens to world leaders - should be buoyed by this fantastic news. But we must not ease up. The target set for the Millennium Development Goal on child mortality may yet not be reached. With still more than one thousand days to go until the 2015 deadline expires, today's news should challenge the world to do even more to reduce poverty and cut child deaths. At the point when we may be turning the tide against child mortality and disease, now would be the worst possible time to walk away. We are entering the final straight and will need a sprint finish. It is time for world leaders to channel their inner Mo Farah.

Just this week, the new Secretary of State of International Development, Justine Greening, confirmed that the UK would stick to its commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid. This latest set of child mortality figures can't help but back up the argument that aid works. Not on its own, of course. My former colleague at Save the Children, Simon Wright, has set out the reasons for the reduction in deaths, and aid is one very important part of the picture. For less than a penny in each pound of government spending, the British people have contributed to saving hundreds of thousands of lives. And so have the French, Germans, Americans and many more.

For me, even in this summer of seemingly endless excitement, this is the biggest news of all. I hope it is for you, too. After all, you made it happen. Take a bow.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1851700 2012-09-03T19:00:00-04:00 2012-11-03T05:12:01-04:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
Who was this superhero? Sarge? No. Rosemary, the telephone operator? No. And this time, not even Henry , the mild-mannered janitor. (If you were born after 1980, go look it up and see what you were missing. Inspector Gadget had nothing on this, kids.)

The superheroes this time were the mild-mannered, quasi-judicial, definitely-cape-eschewing members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the austere body that interprets and enforces laws relating to US stock exchanges and the companies that trade on them. The SEC published a rule requiring all companies listed on US stock exchanges to disclose what they pay to governments for extracting oil and gas, and for mining. It has to be said that the Commissioners didn't hurry to this view; the deadline the SEC were given by the US Congress to do this was 14 April last year.

Nevertheless, the wait appears to have been worth it. The SEC were clear and resolute. For all transactions of over $100,000 and for every project a company operates, US law will require transparency about who paid what to whom. No exceptions. The SEC had no truck with the argument that a special case could be made in countries where it would be illegal to publish such payments, wisely understanding that this "dictator's veto" would simply encourage rogue countries to pass just such a law and try to keep payments hidden.

So no wonder ONE's co-founder Bono called this a really big deal, describing transparency as "the best vaccine against corruption". The new rule will significantly improve the business environment, empowering all citizens, especially in Africa, with valuable information on government revenues that they need in order to hold their leaders accountable. It will make it harder for corrupt officials to divert revenues away from spending on vital services such as healthcare, schools and clean water.

It was also something of a relief. The ruling wasn't a sure thing, following concerted lobbying efforts behind the scenes from some major extractives companies in an attempt to considerably weaken this ruling. ONE members across the US raised their voices on the issue, concerned that the clear intention of lawmakers in Congress should be enforced. We should applaud the SEC for holding the line.

So: first move, USA. Now it's time for Europe to step up and do the same.

The good news is that there is currently a law being debated in the European Parliament which would require similar reporting by companies in the European Union. There are concerns, however, that the proposed measure does not go as far as the one laid down in Washington. There is a huge loophole in the proposed EU law, letting companies off the hook from reporting payments to countries where local laws may prohibit disclosure. The SEC comprehensively dismissed such a provision and for the EU to press ahead with it would be perverse and self-defeating.

A crucial vote on the law is coming up and by voting the right way, European parliamentarians could help African citizens to fight corruption and build a better future for all. But lobbyists from some of the world's biggest companies are now busy at work on this side of the Atlantic trying to weaken the draft EU law. The spotlight is on a small group of EU lawmakers. We're letting them know we want them to do the right thing and watching how they vote. You can join us and the 160,000 ONE members who have taken action.

In the next episode of this story, who will be the superheroes? A group of mild-mannered Brussels parliamentarians? Could be...

(Although, never write off Rosemary, the telephone operator. She always had something special.)]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1685286 2012-07-19T05:04:42-04:00 2012-09-17T05:12:07-04:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
Since he left prison in Paarl in 1990 after 27 years, Mr Mandela's continent has arguably undergone changes as dramatic as any other, certainly in recent years. The Millennium Development Goals have helped focus leaders from around the world on the task of halving extreme poverty and fighting preventable disease and the results have been dramatic.

In the field of health, maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa is down by over 40%, child mortality has fallen by 30%, in large part due to extensive vaccination campaigns which have seen more than 5.4 million children's lives saved in Africa between 2000 and 2009. And new vaccines recently developed against some of the biggest killers of children - diarrhoea and pneumonia- will save even more lives in the coming years.

The progress made against HIV/AIDS is staggering. Nearly 4 million Africans have been placed on life preserving antiretroviral treatment since 2002. And we now know how to prevent mothers passing HIV onto their children.

In education more than three-quarters of children on the continent are enrolled in primary education, over 46 million of these children since 1999, as Africa's teachers set out to create the continent's leaders of tomorrow.

Each life saved and life changed is living proof of the incredible progress we have all helped achieve.

These statistics feed into a bigger picture about the how the rest of the world has come to perceive Africa. Once dismissed as the "hopeless continent" it is now home to six of the ten fastest growing economies on the planet and foreign investment continues to flow in. Premier League football team Sunderland Athletic recently announced a two-year shirt sponsorship deal with "Invest in Africa". With its vast natural resources, innovative tech entrepreneurs and growing working-age population Africa's potential has seen it described by fund managers as "the best investment story on the planet."

These examples, whilst impressive, are only a checkpoint on the road to 2015. Mr Mandela knew as much in 2005 in Trafalgar Square saying: "As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest." We have achieved so much, but we cannot rest now that we are nearly there. Still 7.6m children die of preventable treatable diseases each year and a billion people go to bed hungry every night.

There is no reason to believe that we cannot finish the job. It is a long walk, but Mr Mandela is used to those. We have 1000 days between now and the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It may not seem like long but a lot can change in 1000 days if minds are focused and leaders committed. In just over 1000 days from walking free from prison, Nelson Mandela and others managed achieve what was unthinkable to many: to peacefully end apartheid and draw up a road map for a new nation.

In honour of the man himself and in recognition of his 67 years of public service, people around the world are choosing to mark Mandela Day by giving 67 minutes of their time to help others, be it towards the MDGs or local projects. My pledge is to keep working for the MDGs and to rally others to do the same, whether it's joining ONE or making your own Mandela pledge.

Because of what has been achieved in recent years in the fight against poverty and disease, an entire generation of us in our twenties, thirties and forties can realistically contemplate a world where these scourges can actually be wiped out. In a few years, we could see the elimination of polio, even the beginning of the end of AIDS. We can plan for a time when no child is born with HIV, when diarrhoea and pneumonia rarely claim lives, when famine is a Biblical notion, not a present-day obscenity, and when extreme poverty is on the way to being a thing of the past. These goals are within our grasp and we should be determined to achieve them. Let's be determined to take some great strides forward - not only in our lifetimes, but in Nelson Mandela's too.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1553175 2012-05-29T19:00:00-04:00 2012-07-29T05:12:04-04:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/ Adverts will appear in papers across Europe shining a spotlight on a few corporate lobbyists who are trying to water down a new law that could transform millions of lives. It's an unusual move for us - we're more used to pushing politicians to keep their aid promises. But it might be the most important campaign we have ever run. Here's why...

The European Union is debating a new transparency law that would require oil, gas, mining and forestry companies to publish the payments they make to governments around the world. Currently these secret payments fuel corruption. They allow unscrupulous leaders to pocket some of the profits for themselves and prevent citizens from accessing the information they need to ensure money is used for vital services like schools, roads and health clinics. By making payments public, the public can follow the payments.

Equatorial Guinea is a prime example. Its per capita wealth is equivalent to that of most European countries, yet many of its citizens live in extreme poverty and one in eight children die before reaching their 5th birthday. Meanwhile the President's son - whose official wage as a government minister is $5,000 a month - owns a mansion in Malibu, a private jet worth $33 million, and even bought more than $3 million of Michael Jackson memorabilia. That's a lot of bad stuff, in more ways than one.

For African countries this law could be transformative. In 2010 extractive industries were estimated to be worth $333 billion to Africa. It dwarfs aid - which was $48 billion in the same year. Africa is not poor - it is resource rich. New oil finds are regular news across the continent - from Kenya to Sierra Leone. As ONE's co-founder Bono wrote recently in Time Magazine now is an opportunity to ensure the "resource boom benefits the many, not the few".

That's why ONE, along with our partners in the Publish What You Pay coalition, has been meeting with policymakers, writing letters and organising petitions. We've been to see the most important government ministers across Europe, including Norman Lamb who leads on this for the UK government. ONE members have been contacting their MEPs and we've been in touch with the companies themselves too.

But now is the time to go public.

We know that many international oil, mining and gas companies want to do business in the right way and work in partnership with the communities and countries where they operate. They are rightly proud of their commitment to ethics and transparency and Africa wants their business. But some lobbyists, working on behalf of some companies, seem set on a different course. They continue to argue against details of the law that our partners in Africa tell us are absolutely critical. They want to amend the law to avoid reporting payments against individual projects. This would deny local communities information about the mines and wells in their vicinity. They also want to be exempt from reporting payments in the some of the world's most autocratic states - completely defeating the point of this legislation.

Lord Browne, who as CEO of BP for over ten years, says these lobbyists are wrong. He says such amendments would "break the essential link between information about local resources, local payments and local spending." A law that will not achieve that central objective is not a law European parliamentarians and leaders should wave through.

Most of us struggle to name our MEP, but in the next three months we really ought to get to know them. Members of the European Parliament, and representatives of the EU's national governments at the Council of Ministers, will be voting on this law. Few of them will claim to be against transparency and the fight against corruption - but in this case, the devil is in the detail.

These adverts are just one step. We'll be tracking how key representatives respond, highlighting those fighting for a strong transparency law and exposing those blocking it. By making this process public we will be holding our representatives accountable for the decisions they make. And we will take away the most powerful tool some corporate lobbyists have. Secrecy.

Find out more and join ONE at www.one.org ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1458458 2012-04-27T07:50:10-04:00 2012-06-27T05:12:02-04:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/ Murmurs in Australia suggest politicians are considering taking from the aid budget to resolve the deficit. Aid from rich countries fell by £2.14bn last year. Commentators say that the "golden era of overseas aid is over". Yet we have more evidence than ever before that aid is working and that we have achieved remarkable results - not least over 50 million more children enrolled in school in the last decade. We also know, with over a billion people still living in extreme poverty, the job is not yet over. If we are to keep winning the fight against extreme poverty, hunger and disease every penny counts.

One of the most important battles for aid is being played out in Brussels where leaders from 27 countries are debating how to allocate the next European budget. The negotiations will set in stone the amount the EU gives in aid for the next seven years. The amount proposed to be used to tackle extreme poverty is just 5%, a small fraction of the overall budget. But this equates to a potential €57 billion for the world's poor. Yet as European countries fight over far larger chunks of money for things like the Common Agricultural Policy, which subsidises farmers in Europe often to the detriment of developing countries, there is a risk the small amount set aside for aid will get caught in the crossfire. Leaders must not let that happen.

Between 2004 and 2009 EU aid helped more than nine million children get a primary education, vaccinated more than five million against measles and made sure more than 31 million people have access to safe drinking water. Of all the spending in Brussels it is aid that has the greatest euro for euro impact on people's lives. Not only does EU aid save lives around the world, the EU aid policy also influences the policies of its member countries. This is why Bill Gates branded the EU "the most influential aid donor in the world" earlier this year. What is decided by the European Union will not only determine a significant amount of the world's aid, it will also set important precedents about the role of international aid in the next decade. The negotiation of the European budget is also an opportunity for leaders of countries like the UK and Sweden to pressure Germany, France, Italy and others to join them in giving 0.7% of national income in aid.

The EU aid budget often comes under criticism. For example, media reports today claim 'most EU aid 'goes to richer nations'. The reason for these headlines is that some of the money given to EU candidates, such as Turkey, is classed as aid according to international criteria. However, most people understand aid as money governments set aside to support the world's poorest people and countries lift themselves out of poverty. For this purpose, the EU has two pots of money, the financing instrument for development cooperation (DCI) and the European development Fund (EDF), and neither gives money to Turkey, Iceland or any other European candidate.

As part of the negotiations there will be a review of where EU aid is allocated. The world has changed since 2006 when the last aid budget was agreed - with a number of countries successfully graduating to middle-income status. In this budget the EU will need to make important decisions about which countries to graduate from their aid programme. Ministers need to use this opportunity to insist that aid is further prioritised towards the countries and people that need it most.

What is increasingly recognised is that EU aid has vastly improved over recent years. Today it is some of the most transparent and effective aid in the world. An independent study by Publish What You Fund ranked the EU among the top ten most transparent donors worldwide. The UK also ranks the European Commission among the world's top development and humanitarian aid donors. It makes sense for anyone concerned with ensuring aid is as effective and efficient as possible to support channelling a proportion of aid via the European Union. It means we can pool resources with other countries to increase our impact.

Through the EU we can coordinate aid to avoid overlap, save money on delivery, and reach countries that we otherwise couldn't. Take Eritrea for example, the fifth poorest country in the world but not a focus of aid from the UK, France or Germany. The EU was the second largest donor in Eritrea in 2010. Here EU aid supports agriculture so communities can cope with droughts and avoid famine, and it build roads so people can get their goods to market, building businesses and helping people lift themselves out of poverty.

Much rests on leaders at the European Union making the right decisions. We're three years from our deadline to meet the Millennium Development Goals to halve world poverty. A herculean effort will be needed over coming years to reach them - and even then we are only half way to the real end goal. The outcome of these negotiations will have huge implications for the world's poorest people. When European leaders sit at the negotiating table they must remember the lives already transformed by aid and consider the millions still in need. They should strike a deal for the world's poorest people: first, protect aid in the EU budget negotiations. And second, insist that it is further prioritised towards the countries and people that need it most.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1353900 2012-03-18T19:00:00-04:00 2012-05-18T05:12:01-04:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
But the UK budget doesn't just matter to 60 million Brits. Admittedly, not many of the world's poorest people will be gathered around the television watching George Osborne at the despatch box on Wednesday - but for some of them, his words are a matter of life and death. ONE decided to get to the bottom of the figures and find out just how important they are.

Our report, Small Change, Big Difference, reveals, for the first time, the true impact of UK aid around the world. This new audit of British aid spending plans shows that UK aid will put 15.9 million children in school, protect 5.8 million mothers during childbirth, provide safe drinking water to 17 million people and help over 9 million people overcome malnutrition in the next four years.

But all this will only be achieved if the Chancellor confirms in this week's budget that the UK government will reach its target of investing 0.7% of national income in international aid next year. This new research makes it clear: now would be the worst possible time for Britain to walk away from its promise to the world's poorest. Not just because lives and futures depend on it, but also because in tough times, smart aid is not just good for the poorest countries. It's good for Britain too. Aid helps countries grow, and as they grow they become potential markets and trading partners for UK plc.

This isn't about creating a never ending cycle of aid. The ONE report demonstrates how UK aid will help bring forward the day when aid is no longer needed. In the next four years UK aid will help 77.6 million people access formal financial services, such as bank accounts or credit - the basics needed to start a business. And it will help create employment opportunities for 19.3 million people by investing in infrastructure, supporting entrepreneurs, developing markets to sell goods, encouraging trade and investment, and increasing agricultural productivity.

During David Cameron's recent visit to the United States he and Barack Obama said that "As two of the world's wealthiest nations, we embrace our responsibility as leaders in the development that enables people to live in dignity, health and prosperity." Cameron is right to recognise our responsibilities as a wealthy nation - and he also knows Britain's aid promise is affordable. Even at 0.7% of national income, UK aid will account for just 1.6 pence in every pound of government spending.

In tough economic times, keeping our aid promise is more important than ever. No other budget achieves so much for so little. The government's bilateral and multilateral aid reviews demonstrated its commitment to fund the most cost-effective projects available and just last week the Department for International Development (DfID) linked up with the Serious Organised Crime Agency to ensure that any allegations of misuse of funds are properly investigated. Nobody claims aid is perfect, but British aid is good and getting better.

Each of these statistics on their own is remarkable but together they add up to one of the wisest and most far-sighted investments our government can make. No one wants aid to continue forever but if done properly this is an investment that will save and transform lives, boost economic prospects and help to bring forward the day when extreme poverty - and aid itself - is a thing of the past. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1113084 2011-11-25T18:00:00-05:00 2012-01-25T05:12:01-05:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
The Global Fund, the international partnership that channels money to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, announced it has been forced to delay applications for new programmes due to insufficient funding from donors. Instead it will have to focus its efforts on maintaining the current programmes.

After a decade of huge leaps forward in the fight against AIDS, it is hugely concerning that progress may stall.

New figures from UNAIDS this week showed that in just one year we have added 1.4 million people to treatment.

In 2003 only 100,000 people had access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment, now more than 6.6 million people do. This is in large part thanks to the work of the Global Fund, which is responsible for a sizeable chunk of the global response to HIV and AIDS.

Despite this progress, nearly 8 million others are still waiting for life saving drugs and the number of new HIV infections remains high. And while effective treatment to prevent mothers passing on the virus to their babies is available, less than half of HIV positive women have access to it. A major push is still needed in order to turn the corner in this epidemic.

This year, for the first time, evidence shows us that it is possible to end AIDS within a generation. New research found that an HIV-positive individual on antiretroviral treatment is up to 96% less likely to transmit the virus to others.

This news should give us reason to be more hopeful than ever that the fight against AIDS is one we can win. But this hope is being undermined by donors who are not meeting their promises to the Global Fund.

In the past all pledges made to the donor fund have been delivered, but now this record is slipping. Some donors are not keeping their promises and others are delaying pledges. Now is the worst possible time for delays and broken promises.

There have been concerns about the Global Fund. It is true that they identified a very small proportion of funds being lost. But the Global Fund has a zero tolerance policy for corruption.

Suspected corruption is pursued aggressively, corrupt officials go to jail, steps are taken to reclaim funds and new safeguards are put in place. The Global Fund has also introduced a pro-active plan of action to address any remaining issues.

The openness of the Global Fund and its commitment to deal with concerns head-on is something worth celebrating. And reforms agreed this week will make the Global Fund not just a life-saving global health institution, but also a leading example of smart aid and transparency in practise.

If donors had doubts, they should now have confidence.

Germany has responded to this development by releasing a commitment of $100m to support the Global Fund.

Other donors now need to follow. And donors must commit to serious planning for an ambitious scale-up of efforts over the next couple of years, to ensure the Global Fund can reach many more people who need its help. We cannot afford to lose ground just when the beginning of the end of AIDS is in sight.

When the Global Fund was first established Kofi Annan said "the war on AIDS will not be won without a war chest". That is still true today. The world needs the Global Fund and we need to fund it. This would be the worst time to falter.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1073791 2011-11-03T11:03:36-04:00 2012-01-03T05:12:02-05:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/
My first G8 summit was in Birmingham in 1998. I didn't get inside that time - I was one of 70,000 people who formed a human chain around the summit to call on leaders to cancel third world debt. As I recall, something happened to divert the world's attention then. I think it was the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury went to the FA Cup Final rather than join the protest.

Over the years, these summits have often been buffeted by events. Sometimes by tragedy: in 2005, the Gleneagles G8 was temporarily suspended while Tony Blair flew to London to deal with the 7 July terror attacks. I remember how the oxygen seemed to be sucked out of the place in an instant. But that horror somehow seemed to focus leaders' minds back on the business in hand: they restarted the meeting and finished negotiations on the Gleneagles Declaration, promising $50 billion more in aid for the poorest countries.

There is a slim chance that this Cannes summit also could be brought back on track. The report presented to the G20 this afternoon by Bill Gates puts Africa centre stage. Gates recognises that Africa can be part of the solution to the global economic crisis. He says "development isn't just good for people in poor countries; it's good for all of us". With 500 million people of working age, and six of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world, the G20 will be missing a trick if it fails to recognise Africa as a new source of consumer demand and a solution for weak global growth.

With a few notable exceptions, world leaders have been quietly backing away from their promises to the world's poorest and hoping nobody would notice. The Gates report shows how financing for the fight against poverty can be found, leaving leaders with no excuse not to act. A coordinated global agreement on investment, aid and innovative taxes could raise enough revenue to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and avoid catastrophic consequences of the eurozone crises - not only for Europe and the international finance system, but also for developing countries who are the innocent victims of this crisis.

The G20 has never met this close to Africa. The continent is barely five hundred miles from where the leaders are sitting. Yet the interests of Africa feel a world away. If he can go the extra mile in the next few hours, President Sarkozy might just ensure this G20 is remembered for more than the Greek crisis. It's a long shot - but don't bet against it just yet.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.993629 2011-10-04T06:03:56-04:00 2011-12-04T05:12:07-05:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/ Yahoo's news pages brand it the "shocking F-word vid". In the UK, the folk who decide what is fit and proper content for TV ads are stewing over it. A decision is expected shortly (watch this space). Critics say we're just trying to shock.

There's an irony here. A few weeks ago I was watching a news report on the spreading famine in Somalia. Families were walking seventy or eighty miles to cross the border to the relative safety of the Dadaab camp in Kenya. Some mothers arrived speaking of the horrific choice they'd had to make: which of their children to leave behind? Knowing that not all would make it, they'd had to make the most appalling decision. The weakest children left to die on the side of the long road to Dadaab.

If this does not shock us, we are beyond shock. We are unshockable.

A day or two after seeing that report, and after hearing from former colleagues in Save the Children and Oxfam that it really was as bad as this, we were talking in the ONE office about what we could do. The thought emerged: isn't 'Famine' the real F-word? We all understand famine as a biblical notion, like plague and pestilence. We all get it as a historical abhorrence, like slavery and apartheid. But famine in the present tense? Famine in the 21st century? Isn't that just obscene?

And so the idea was born. It wasn't a hard sell to get people to help us. The acclaimed director Jesse Dylan came on board. A cast of characters, many of whom have a first-hand understanding of Africa, like K'Naan, Annie Lennox, George Clooney and Bono, offered to help. Our brilliant ONE creative team, led by Roxane Philson and Jeff Davidoff, pulled it all together at lightning speed. And now you see it. The results of our efforts.

It isn't meant to shock. We hope it makes people stop and think. Think about the fact that this situation is not some act of God or nature. Drought may be inevitable but famine is not. I was in the remote highlands of Ethiopia not long ago - the kind of place that you might expect to struggle most. But not now. With long-term investments in agriculture, early warning systems, food reserves, irrigation and more, those rural communities are getting by. It's fragile, for sure. But they are weathering this storm.

The same is true across the region. Much of Africa - even where the food system is under serious stress - is managing to sidestep the worst of this crisis. Most of Africa is hungry no more. Parents are seeing their children grow up hungry no more. One child, one family, one village at a time. Hungry No More.

And yet, as today's latest UN situation report is expected to confirm, 750,000 people are threatened with death in the next six months. These are the people who couldn't step to the side. They are caught in the full force of a silent storm. Many of those lives can still be saved, if the world acts urgently and boldly. And beyond this crisis, let's determine now that we will never let this happen again. Nobody's saying it's easy. But it can be done.

Children left to die on the side of the road. F*****. Let's stop it.

See the ad and sign ONE's petition at www.one.org
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.924193 2011-08-11T09:00:45-04:00 2011-10-11T05:12:01-04:00

Adrian Lovett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrian-lovett/ 12 million people are on the edge of survival in the Horn of Africa as I write. Famine, a word that should have been consigned to a previous century, has been declared and is spreading. And yet, with some notable exceptions, the international response to the crisis has been derisory. Months after drought was declared in the Horn of Africa many governments have still not stepped up to meet their fair share of the UN's appeal. The UN remains a billion dollars short of what they need. Parents are left with the horrific choice of which of their malnourished children, too weak to walk, they must leave - literally - on the side of the road as they struggle across many miles of treacherous territory to find food and shelter. Meanwhile, leaders debate aid budgets, eyeing each other's next move and playing a game of "after you" with barely an ounce of the urgency and energy this crisis demands.

Our policy experts at ONE have calculated what would be considered a fair contribution to the crisis for countries around the world, based on national income and annual contributions to the UN. The results - published today - show that while countries like the UK, US, Sweden and Australia are setting the example and leading the response, France, Italy, Germany and others are languishing far behind.

France - Europe's second biggest economy - has contributed a mere $40m, less than a third of their fair share. While President Sarkozy can be commended for putting long-term food security at the top of the agenda for the G20 this year, people are dying now. Germany's response to the appeal is just over $40m, a quarter of the $158m that should be expected from Europe's largest economy. The German public have personally donated €90m which only highlights the inadequate contribution from the government. As for Italy, Prime Minister Berlusconi and his government have committed less than $5 million dollars. In the ranking of donations, they sit just above Sudan. You don't need a fair share analysis to tell you this is a pitiful amount.

These governments will argue that our figures are wrong. In fact, our figures about their aid pledges to this crisis come straight from the UN. They will argue that other funds, such as those given to the World Bank, should also be counted - but these funds are almost entirely for completely different projects unrelated to this appeal. It is true that European countries of course contribute to the aid given by the European Commission, but even taking this into account, the picture remains essentially the same. Quibbling over the figures is a further unedifying spectacle from officials who should be rolling out cash, not excuses.

It is not just traditional donors than need to step-up. Other than Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States have contributed little to the UN appeal so far. The treasuries of many of these countries have been swelled with cash thanks to the high cost of oil. They are global players. They can and should meet their fair share and help the millions of people suffering in their neighbourhood.

There are some heroes here. Even in times of economic difficulty countries can afford to give, as the US, UK and Nordic countries have shown. British Secretary of State Andrew Mitchell was one of the first to announce an appropriate contribution and in doing so he set an example to the world of how to act in such a crisis. The European Commission has also been strong, led by President Barroso and Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva. African countries and institutions including South Africa, the African Union and Kenya are also contributing. It says volumes about the resilience and growth of Africa that the continent is stepping up to help its own people. And of course, the global diaspora - especially Somali communities around the world - has a big part to play and appears to be rising to the challenge.

It took some mind-numbing number crunching to arrive at this fair share calculation. But at its heart is the principle that in times of need everyone has a responsibility to give what they can to help - and that the greatest burden should fall on those with the most. Governments around the world have a responsibility to the Horn of Africa - leaders have failed to keep their promises to invest in long-term agriculture development which could help stop famines in the first place. So it is shameful that some of the biggest economies in Europe and Somalia's wealthy neighbours in the Gulf are ignoring the desperate situation as the death toll rises.

Oxfam is right to say "there has been a catastrophic breakdown of the world's collective responsibility to act." There can be no room for complacency in this crisis and steady, measured steps are simply not enough. Emergency aid is needed today. Then the world must launch a concerted effort to invest in the long-term solutions that will stop similar disasters returning in the future.
]]>