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This report from Oxfam, written in the run up to the 2007 G8 summit, calls on G8 leaders to meet their promises to tackle global poverty, injustice and climate change. Despite some areas of real progress in the past two years, the report argues that overall progress has fallen far short of promises, the cost of which is millions of lives lost due to poverty.

The report argues that G8 is a crucial opportunity for campaigners to hold world leaders to account for delivering on their promises. Key demands include debt cancellation, increased aid, trade justice, better peacekeeping and arms control and concerted action taken to tackle climate change.

The authors acknowledge that there has been some important progress since the last G8 in 2005, for example:

• the majority of debts owed by 22 countries to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have been cancelled
• twenty million more children are in school
• more than a million people now have access to treatment for HIV and AIDS
• 80 per cent of the world’s governments now support an Arms Trade Treaty

However, they argue that rich countries have still come short of doing what they promised. In particular:

• aid to poor countries has fallen in 2006 for the first time since 1997 and could miss the Gleneagles target by an estimated $30bn
• the international community has failed to respond to the Darfur crisis, where the number of people there who are dependent on aid has doubled to almost four million
• little progress has been made on trade justice, to which rich countries have shown a lack of political commitment
• rich countries are failing to halt catastrophic climate change or provide sufficient funding for poor countries to adapt to its impact

The report concludes that in order to prevent the loss of millions more lives, G8 leaders must take immediate action to meet their global commitments.

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