2007 G8 Summit, Germany
The annual summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations (G8) ended on Friday 8th June 2007 in Heiligendamm, Germany. The central theme of the summit was Growth and Responsibility, with globalisation and Africa being key foci of the meeting. Key summit documents can be found here on the official G8 website. Heads of State and Government had reached agreements on key issues from climate protection to Africa policy to the newly launched Heiligendamm Process in which the industrialised countries will enhance their cooperation with the five biggest emerging economies in the form of a continuous dialogue
G8 and emerging economies
Leading industrialised nations can no longer meet many of the challenges they face on their own. The big emerging economies – China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa, have an increasingly important role to play. At Heiligendamm both groups agreed to co-operate more closely and on a more continuous basis in what has becomes known as the Heiligendamm Process. Dialogue with focus on four key areas:
•Promoting and protecting innovation
•Strengthening the freedom of investment by means of an open investment climate, including strengthening the principles of corporate social responsibility
•Determining joint responsibilities for development, focussing specifically on Africa
•Joint access to know-how to improve efficiency and technology co-operation, with the aim of contributing to reducing CO¬2 emissions
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris is to provide a platform for this new dialogue, which will be launched in the second half of 2007. A progress report will be presented at the 2008 G8 Summit in Japan; a final report on the results of the dialogue will be put forward at the G8 Summit in Italy in 2009.
Furthermore, a dialogue forum beyond the Heiligendamm summit would be set on the institutional platform of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Countries intend to achieve tangible results by 2009, for example to protect innovations, to establish fair investment conditions and promote technologies for improved energy efficiency
Climate Change
The G8 for the first time agreed on the need to establish common goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases. However developing countries made it clear that they would feel obligated to the process of reducing emissions if it was a process lead by the UN
Africa
The G8 stood by their commitment to increase their official development assistance to Africa to $25 billion each year by 2010. The G8 members’ total ODA is due to increase to US$50 billion a year by 2010. The G8 also agreed to provide an additional US$60 billion a year over the coming years to fight HIV&AIDS, Malaria and TB, especially for prevention programmes and to strengthen health systems in the least developed countries. Germany pledged €4 billion by 2015
Global trade
The summit helped G8 countries to reach consensus on their positions within international trade bodies and organisations. For example, in the forthcoming Doha Round of the WTO negotiations, the G8 want to ensure that trade between industrialised and developing countries is made easier. In the coming weeks, trade ministers from industrialised and emerging economies will meet to lay the ground work for negotiations with the aim of liberalising global trade and help integrate developing countries into the system