The G8 is expected to promise billions of dollars Friday to support Canada’s initiative to improve maternal and child health in poor countries.
Canada is pushing the United States and other G8 countries to announce substantial new funding to support Harper’s signature proposal at the international summit.
Non-governmental organizations are hoping Canada’s own pledge will be at least $1.4 billion, however, a final number from G8 countries won’t be known until late Friday.
Harper’s communications director Dimitri Soudas said non-G8 countries and private foundations are also prepared to kick in money to the so-called Muskoka Initiative to boost maternal, newborn and child health.
Already, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $1.5 billion over five years. Harper’s government is touting the initiative as a centrepiece of the summit, and it 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 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.
