by Jerome a Paris
Tue Jul 5th, 2005 at 06:18:22 PM EST
From this morning's Financial Times:
NGOs grow weary of world leaders' 'empty' initiatives
It was no accident when, at the London Live8 rock concert on Saturday, the pop star Sting changed the lyrics of his old classic Every Breath You Take. Accompanied by montages of the Group of Eight leaders, he pointedly sang: "Every vow you break, every smile you fake, every claim you stake, we'll be watching you."
(...)
G8 summits have encouraged the spread of "initiativitis" - one-off announcements aimed more at creating news than making genuine advances. (...) The acknowledged past master of the art is the UK [which] has become skilled at creating splashy announcements out of little or no new money - frequently leaked a day in advance to pliant British newspapers.
(...)
Their ability to keep doing so, though, may have waned. Over the past few days even NGOs with strong links to the UK Treasury and Downing Street, like Oxfam, have been increasingly willing to criticise rather than cheerlead.
The paper version of the FT had a nice little table with a number of announcements and the reality behind them (typically, money taken from one budget line to increase another budget line, or an existing budget line announced as extra spending), but i have not been able to find it online. Pity, as it was pretty devastating.
We must hold them accountable.
