STWR - Share The World's Resources

WaterAid marked the midway point in the agreed timescale for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with the launch of a report, 'Global cause' and effect: How the aid system is undermining the Millennium Development Goals', which demonstrates how progress towards achieving the goals is being held back by donor preferences for 'global causes' which undermine the development priorities of recipient countries.

The world’s most powerful countries have failed to live up to their promises, distancing the poorest countries even further from satisfying the basic minimum needs of their citizens, according to the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) published by Social Watch (www.socialwatch.org).

The quiet advance of trade and investment agreements between rich and poor countries threatens to deny developing countries a favourable foothold in the global economy, argues Oxfam.

The United States provides more than half the food aid that feeds hungry people around the world, but its programs are plagued by inefficiencies that have sharply reduced the amount of food being provided and have slowed deliveries, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress on Wednesday.

De-politicized and more predictable flows with greater economic focus needed, managed by the UN along Marshall Plan lines, UNCTAD report says.

The huge pledges of aid, debt relief and trade reforms that were promised at last year's G8 conference at Gleneagles have not been delivered, according to a report by Action Aid.

An investigation into the inability of the current system of international aid to significantly reduce poverty over the past 35 years, with practical proposals for an alternative mechanism, based on economic sharing, which can rapidly foster self-sufficiency in the developing world.