Make Poverty History Campaign And The G8 Summit

EDM number 554 in 2005-06, proposed by Greg Mulholland on 11/07/2005.

That this House praises the Make Poverty History campaign, which has united millions of people around the world in demanding action to end the apartheid of global poverty; expresses disappointment that greater progress was not made at the G8 summit in Gleneagles on aid, trade and debt so that whilst poverty will be reduced, it certainly will not be made history by the measures announced; notes Oxfam's assessment that the outcome has fallen short of the hopes of the millions who have been campaigning for a momentous breakthrough and Cafod's conclusion that the G8's promise to provide the resources to halve extreme poverty by 2015 has not been kept; recognises that only $20 billion of the promised aid of $50 billion is new money and that delaying it until 2010 will cost millions of lives; whilst welcoming an acknowledgment that poor countries need control over trade policies, regrets a lack of real action including no end date for scrapping damaging subsidies; whilst welcoming the limited debt relief deal, which will amount to £1 billion a year, recognises that this falls far short of the £10 billion a year debt relief needed and that no commitment was made to end conditions for debt relief; calls on the Government to use the Presidency of the EU to push for significant progress on these issues; and calls upon the G8 leaders at the WTO meeting in Hong Kong later this year to announce the measures that are needed to make poverty history.

This motion has been signed by a total of 53 MPs.