Make the Hokkaido Summit the Last Summit of the G8!–Declaration of Participants in the International Solidarity Days of the G8
The G8 Summit opened in Hokkaido in July, 2008 with the usual rhetoric of concern about conditions in Africa. These are statements that few people in Africa and the rest of the world take seriously, given how far the G8 governments are from raising the $20 billion they pledged for Africa at the Gleneagles Summit in 2005.
Indeed, if there is anything that distinguishes this particular G8 summit, it is its low credibility. In George Bush, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Yasuo Fukuda, we have a group of discredited leaders who are very unpopular with their own electorates. Moreover, in addition to their broken promises on Africa, the G8 have also failed miserably to deliver on their other pledges, notably, canceling the debt of the poor countries, raising aid levels to 0.7 per cent of the GDP of the G8 countries, promoting development through trade, and tackling climate change.
As the G8 meet, the world is reeling from four crises that are unfolding simultaneously: the skyrocketing price of oil, the massive rise in the price of food, the financial crisis that is bringing the global economy to its knees, and the acceleration of global warming. To expect the G8 to come up with solutions to these crises is to expect the impossible since these are the inevitable consequences of the G8’s promotion of a project of globalization that has mainly benefited and enriched their corporate elites.
Read the entire declaration on the G8 Action Network website.