• Rich nations had pledged $25 billion to Africa in 2005 in Gleneagles
• But due to global recession, potential donors have cut back on pledges
• UK premier says economic slowdown should not be a reason to renege
• Only Tanzania in East Africa receiving UK aid as Uganda, Kenya frozen out

African nations are set to receive less than half of the $25 billion in new aid pledged at the 2005 Gleneagles summit, latest figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development show.

The total aid will be $107 billion in 2010 against the 2005 pledges of $128 billion, the OECD has forecast, with sub-Saharan Africa suffering the biggest shortfall and is likely to receive just $12 billion of the $25 million pledged.

Part of the reason for the shortfall is that some western countries pledged a percentage of GDP on aid, and due to the international recession the amount spent has fallen, with some even failing to keep their promises. 

The Financial Times said that the promise made in 2005 by 15 EU countries to raise their aid to at least 0.51 per cent of national income would be broken by six of them: France, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Greece and Italy.

The OECD, a grouping of rich world economies, said that of the $21 billion gap between promises and likely actual aid, the large majority – $17 billion – was a result of donors not hitting their targets, while just $4 billion was caused by the global financial crisis reducing their national income.

It has urged rich governments to honour their obligations to the developing world saying that up until last year aid has increased by an impressive 35 per cent since 2004.

Britain is on track to increase its aid to 0.56 per cent of GDP this year, exceeding the 0.51 per cent target wealthier European countries set themselves five years ago.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there should be no excuses for falling short of the Gleneagles goals, even in the depths of a severe economic crisis.

"Some of the shortfall is due to reduced growth during the global recession. But I do not believe there can be any excuse for denying money promised to the poorest people on our planet," he said, calling for a poverty summit in New York later this year to discuss how to get aid back on track.

Britain is one of the few countries which pledged to maintain the increases in aid levels in the current recession and remains committed to reaching the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNP spent on aid by 2015.

Britain’s Labour government is even at present trying to enshrine that commitment in law.

In East Africa the increase in UK aid has been mainly concentrated on Tanzania as London does not provide budget support to Kenya (due to concerns over government corruption) and in Uganda support has been frozen at 2007/08 levels.

Max Lawson, senior policy adviser at Oxfam, said: "These broken (aid) promises are nothing short of a scandal. A woman dies every minute in childbirth somewhere in the world because of inadequate medical care and 72 million children remain out of school. The missing $21bn could pay for every child to go to school, and could save the lives of 2 million of the poorest mothers and children.”