Leaders at Thursday's G20 summit in London have reaffirmed their commitment to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals and their aid pledges, including those made to Africa at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit. They have also agreed to provide $50 billion to support social protection, boost trade and safeguard development in low-income countries.
The final communique from the summit said resources from agreed sales of gold by the International Monetary Fund would be used, together with surplus income, to provide $6 billion in additional concessional and flexible finance for the poorest countries over the next two to three years.
The Group of 20 leaders said they were making resources available for social protection for the poorest countries by investing in long-term food security and making voluntary bilateral contributions to the World Bank's Vulnerability Framework.
The summit also agreed a trade finance package worth $250 billion over two years to support global trade flows, which have shrunk under the impact of the credit crunch, hitting poor countries hard.
The G20 called on the United Nations, working with other global institutions, to create a mechanism to monitor the effects of the crisis on the poorest and most vulnerable.
"We are determined not only to restore growth but to lay the foundation for a fair and sustainable world economy," the leaders' statement said.
"We recognise that the current crisis has a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable in the poorest countries and recognise our collective responsibility to mitigate the social impact of the crisis to minimise long-lasting damage to global potential."
Recognising the human dimension to the crisis, the G20 leaders said they would "build a fair and family-friendly labour market for both women and men", and put in place employment opportunities and income support measures.
"We will support employment by stimulating growth, investing in education and training, and through active labour market policies, focusing on the most vulnerable," the statement said.
On global warming, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to address the threat of irreversible climate change and reach agreement at the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
They also said they would "make the best possible use of investment funded by fiscal stimulus programmes towards the goal of building a resilient, sustainable, and green recovery". And they promised to "make the transition towards clean, innovative, resource efficient, low carbon technologies and infrastructure".
Reuters has more details of the trillion-dollar crisis deal agreed at the summit.
Here are some reactions from aid agencies to the summit outcomes:
* Glen Tarman of BOND (British Overseas NGOs for Development) and chair of Put People First, an alliance of 160 unions, development, faith and climate change groups, said: "The G20 appears to have made progress on some critical issues but there are also missed opportunities, especially on building a green economy, and causes for real concern in other areas. G20 leaders have not yet gone far enough on the fundamental changes the world needs."
* Claire Melamed, head of policy at ActionAid, said: "The G20 have agreed an unprecedented boost for poor countries. If they follow through on these promises, the money they have agreed today will go a long way towards helping these countries weather the effects of the economic storms that are daily battering the poorest people in the world."
She added that the money should be linked to reforms of the IMF and the World Bank: "The G20 have announced that they will accelerate reforms of the bank and the IMF. This is more important now than it has ever been, since the announcements today effectively put these institutions in charge of a huge global fiscal stimulus. These promises must be kept and poor countries must be given an equal say in the institutions that now hold the world's chequebook."
* David Peppiatt, acting international director of the British Red Cross said: "It is places like Haiti, Angola, Liberia and Sudan, already struggling to cope with disasters such as flooding, drought and conflict, who are now set to become even more vulnerable as a result of the financial crisis. The renewed pledges on the Millennium Development Goals must be applauded, but even if countries stick to the aid pledges they made before the crisis struck - which is the absolute minimum we would expect - there are serious doubts over whether this would be enough to cover the increased humanitarian need."
The BRC says the G20 commitments don't support the ramping up of the humanitarian response that's likely to be required. "While the G20 has pledged vast sums to the IMF to help alleviate the crisis, the IMF is not and never has been a mechanism for delivering humanitarian aid. There is a very real question mark hanging over how anticipated additional humanitarian need will be met. Alongside the financial stimuli we must make sure those who are already in desperate humanitarian need are not simply abandoned to their fate while the world waits for its economies to recover," said Peppiatt.
* Duncan Green, Oxfam spokesperson, said: "We welcome the $1.1 trillion for global economic recovery. But we must ensure that poor countries get their fair share - that Uganda benefits as well as Ukraine. And we have deep concerns about how central the IMF has become in this crisis. The fund has been given a blank cheque but its reform remains no more than a promise."
* Charles Abugre, Christian Aid head of policy, said: "Christian Aid welcomes the G20 commitment to deliver the Gleneagles aid promises to poor countries. Given the collapse in the value of the dollar, commitments will need to be increased to maintain their real value. Donors must also renew their pledge to eliminate economic policy conditions attached to aid and debt relief."
The aid agency welcomes the G20 plan to commission a blacklist of tax havens, but says it's disappointed countries will exchange tax information on request only. "This puts the burden on poor countries to prove they need the information and removes the pressure on responding countries to rapidly reply. To work, countries need the capacity to apply sanctions if their request for information is denied Â? capacity that poor countries do not have," said Abugre.
* Adrian Lovett, director of campaigns for Save the Children, said: "Nobody should imagine this summit is anything more than a beginning. A communique feeds no one and words alone do not save a child's life. But there is a ray of hope from today's summit that leaders may have grasped the chance to point the world in a fairer, more just direction. Everything now depends on what those leaders do next."
* Julian Oram, head of policy at the World Development Movement, said: "For the world's poorest people the outcome of the summit is a bitter pill to swallow, as they are being hit hardest by the economic and climate crises. What is needed from the G20 is a radical shake up of the global economy, what we got was world leaders desperately rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. The commitments to stay on course to meet the Millennium Development Goals and to provide emergency funding for poor countries are welcome. But what was missing was a global green new deal that puts the interests of poor people and the environment at the heart of international trade and finance."
WDM warns that the International Monetary Fund has a history of lending money to developing countries with strict conditions attached, including cuts in public spending and liberalisation. "These policies have exacerbated the current economic crisis and global inequality. The G20 has not done enough to guarantee that IMF 'bail outs' for developing countries do not come with more failed economic policies in tow. Talk of reforming the IMF and World Bank is long overdue, but to be truly democratic, we need to see more than a small expansion of the privileged club of countries which have a say in how these institutions are run," said Oram.
What do you think? What more could the G20 have done to help the world's poorest weather the economic storm?
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