Dear G8, Re: Meeting promises for the children of Africa, our future We are very grateful for your continued commitment to support our governments as we endeavour to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Your pledge at Gleneagles in 2005 to double aid to Africa to USD 50 billion per year is vital for improving the conditions of our people who are plagued by poverty and disease. Whilst these promises were ambitious, they are achievable, as many of you have demonstrated. Such targets and investments have catalysed remarkable progress, however coverage remains uneven and a huge financing gap persists. We still have a long way to go until the MDGs are met in Africa, where almost 50% of deaths in children under 5 take place, and we need your support to achieve them. However, several countries have failed to fulfil their promise for increased aid allocation to Africa: estimates of assistance from France and Germany reveal an increase of just 25%, whilst Italy’s is actually set to reduce their contribution by 6% this year. For our part, we are working to meet the promises we made at Bamako, Abuja and Maputo. At the African Union, we have clearly expressed our commitment to developing health systems, particularly expanding human resources for health, encouraging innovation in financing and increasing budgetary allocation to improve the health of our women and children. In fact, the 15% target agreed in Abuja has already been surpassed in terms of expenditures by several countries, for instance in Liberia, Tanzania and Rwanda where the health sector is responsible for over 16%, 18% and 19% respectively of total government spending. Such allocations are of course difficult to achieve with all the pressures on very limited resources, yet our governments acknowledge the primacy of health and endeavour to meet the MDGs. As we are just five years from the stated Goals, we call on you to rise to your promises and increase your aid to our countries exponentially, as was pledged five years ago. Further, our focus must be on maternal, newborn and child health, as you acknowledged in L’Aquila last year, and as Prime Minister Harper of Canada has identified for particular focus at your summit this summer. This commitment to the children of our future must be realised through increased resources and practical action. Per capita annual health expenditure must be raised to at least $34, as stipulated by the WHO’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, in order to provide the basic package of services required to meet the MDGs; we need your help to do this. Whether you seize this opportunity to deliver will be a major test to your credibility, which is currently under threat due to your failure to deliver so far. Investing in maternal, newborn and child health works. We urge you to put forward new resources to fund the development of Africa’s health systems to provide the vital interventions needed. And we welcome your partnership on this journey to realise the MDGs.