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G-8 Plans to Address Aid Accountability
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Fukuda weighed in, announcing that he, too, will attend the opening ceremonies. "There certainly may be problems with China, but even so, they are striving to improve things," he said.
Bush opened his second day of diplomacy at the summit Monday by meeting privately with the new Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev said later that the two agreed on "matters pertaining to Iran and North Korea" but expressed differences on the U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense system in European countries.
The plan to set up a monitoring system to track development promises to Africa has been one of the main U.S. objectives for the summit. Although the United States is under pressure from other G-8 countries to set more ambitious targets for addressing global warming, Bush and his aides have been planning for months to turn the tables on their allies by pressuring them on aid to Africa.
U.S. officials say they are on target to meet their goal of $8.7 billion in development assistance for sub-Saharan Africa by 2010, and independent groups confirm these statements. The DATA report singled out France, Japan and Canada for reducing aid. The United States, it suggested, was among G-8 countries that had made less ambitious pledges.
"On the whole, the EU G-8 members made more ambitious commitments, but thus far have not delivered extensively," DATA wrote. "On the other hand, Canada, Japan and the U.S. made relatively less ambitious commitments and yet are moderately closer to meeting them."
Public- and private-sector officials involved with the initiative offered few details of how the monitoring mechanisms will work, pending formal approval this week. But officials expect to release a report with a country-by-country assessment of G-8 promises to help the world's poor.
In addition, committees of experts will be set up to monitor pledges the G-8 countries make in the health arena, according to a draft summit communique that must be approved by the leaders.
