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Vatican City, 7 June 2007 –Pope Benedict XVI
yesterday appealed to G8 leaders gathering in Germany to keep their promises to boost development aid to the world's poorest nations with the aim of eradicating dehumanizing, catastrophic
poverty.
The Pope has made the same appeal to German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the past few months, and the Holy Father said that he had received assurances from Ms. Merkel that
she would keep the issue of increasing aid to developing nations, mostly in Africa, high on the meeting's agenda.
Nearly 400 Caritas representatives from countries the world over unfurled a banner in Saint Peter's Square Tuesday with a campaign message to the G8 to "Make Aid Work"
emblazoned across it. Caritas is holding its quadrennial General Assembly in Vatican City until Saturday. The Catholic organization
CIDSE has partnered with Caritas in the G8 campaign.
As the leaders of the Group of
Eight countries arrived yesterday in Heiligendamm, Pope Benedict issued another appeal on behalf of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.
"I should like to make a further
appeal to the leaders meeting at Heiligendamm, not to retreat from their promises to make a substantial increase in development aid in favor of the most needy populations, especially those of the
African continent," Pope Benedict said.
Two years ago, the leaders of the world's most industrialized nations (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada) plus the Russian Federation wrote off 40 billion dollars' worth of debt owed by developing nations and promised to increase development aid by 50
billion dollars annually by 2010. Instead, development aid in 2006 decreased for the first time in a decade, by 5 percent.Some G8 countries have been criticized for counting the debt write-offs
as development aid. But if the one isn't coupled with the other, the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating poverty will never be met."We believe it is morally scandalous that these promises won't be met
if we don't recover this lost ground," said Duncan MacLaren, the current Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis."These goals are easily achieved. It is a matter of half a percent of national income for
G8 countries per year. It would take so little to achieve this goal. But we have to have a concrete plan and we have to make sure that rich countries live up to their commitments," Mr MacLaren
added.Of
the G8 countries, only Britain and Japan have delivered on their promises made two years ago in
Gleneagles, Scotland. The other countries are woefully behind on their
commitments.
Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic
relief, development, and social service organisations present in over 200 countries and territories.
