The G8 Summit kicked off on Tuesday on the Island of Hokkaido, Japan, with a coalition of non-governmental organisations, accusing G8 leaders of letting Africa down by not living up to their commitments. Oliver Buston of Debt Aid Africa and Max Lawson of OXFAM, Great Britain, criticicised Italy and Canada, in particular, for backtracking on their promises to Africa. At a press briefing on Tuesday, the two officials wondered whether G8 members were "indeed giants or jelly" when it comes to honouring their commitments to Africa. They however, noted that some G8 members, such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, are cranking up assistance and getting great results while Japan and France’s commitments are in the balance. and the United States of America, are cranking up assistance and getting great results while Japan and France’s commitments are in the balance. They pointed out that Japan’s assistance to Africa is not enough to command a leadership role arguing that before the G8 meeting, they had made modest pledges to double bilateral Official Development Assistance [ODA] to Africa and lamented that "in 2007, Japan actually cut multilateral support to Africa by 48 percent’.’ They said collectively, the G8 delivered just three billion dollars of the additional 25 billion dollars aid to Africa pledged at the 2005 G8 Summit in Scotland. On agriculture, they said while G8’s ODA to Africa was around two billion dollars, it was estimated that nine to 13 billion dollars per year was needed to substantially increase food production and improve rural infrastructure, though African governments had committed to spend 10 percent of national budgets on that, raising about five billion dollars per year. Touching on health issues, the officials said the "G8 had built a car but will they put fuel in it?’’ The G8, they noted, at the Heiligendam Summit in 2007, pledged to provide at least a projected 60 billion dollars over the coming years to combat diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis but indicated that currently there was no clarity from them on what they intended to contribute. They therefore urged the G8 to make their commitments clear, and provide a donor by donor time -table for delivery. The officials stressed the need for them to fully reiterate commitments in a communiqué to double aid to Africa by 25 billion dollars annually by 2020. "Bureaucratic sleight of hand is not an appropriate response to these important development assistance and AIDS treatment targets. The pledges were made in 2005 and reiterated at every summit since. They can not just be erased,’’ they emphasised. Source: Times