"I want to say just one final thing, because I know that so many of your members were the backbone of the make poverty history movement, and are anxious about what the recession means for global solidarity and global justice.

Let me reassure you today.

There are those who would use the excuse of the financial crisis to break their promises to the worlds poorest. Well we will not. We will keep our promises.

A draft communiqué leaked to the Financial Times newspaper says that G8 leaders are still committed to the promises they made around foreign aid and AIDS programs - but they won't commit to the targets they set three years ago.

You can read the entire story here:

"G8 leaders ready to backtrack on $25bn aid pledge to Africa"
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2421a85a-463d-11dd-9009-0000779fd2ac.html?ncli...

Possibly the most interesting part of the article is this paragraph:

With world food price crisis and the impacts of climate change threatening to undermine the progress being made towards ending poverty, it is even more urgent than ever before that Canada live up to its promise to increase our foreign aid to 0.7% of our national income.