Responding to the G7 Leaders’ call today for a coordinated response to the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak, Jörn Kalinski, Oxfam International’s Senior Advisor on the G7, said:  

"We welcome the G7's recognition that the Ebola outbreak demands a strong, coordinated international response to the Ebola outbreak. A coordinated response that combines surveillance, treatment, infection prevention, water and sanitation services, safe burials and meaningful community engagement is critical to preventing this outbreak from escalating further. All these life-saving activities and the coordination of them cost money, and right now the response is severely under-funded and is struggling to keep up with the growing crisis.   

“However, the international community must also acknowledge that prevention is always more effective —and far less costly— than crisis response. We welcome new funding, but in reality, we are mobilizing new funds to replace those that were suddenly slashed last year with deadly impacts. Cuts that the US and other major donors made over the last year have weakened health and surveillance systems, reduced community outreach capacity and undermined essential water, sanitation and hygiene services in vulnerable areas. Rather than reacting after the outbreak has taken hold, donors could have helped prevent its spread by maintaining the investments needed to strengthen preparedness and resilience in the first place. Donors must ensure that this new funding reaches frontline organizations quickly and commit to this response for the long-term.”  

In response to the Leaders' declaration on mutually beneficial international partnerships, Kalinski said: 

“The G7 has made the biggest collective cut in life-saving aid in its history, a move that is already causing millions of people to die. No amount of declarations extolling the advantages of “new kinds of partnerships” will save them. The G7 should instead rapidly increase their aid to the 0.7 percent of GNI they have promised. 

“Repurposing life-saving aid to provide multiple financial incentives for private investors rather than building public schools and hospitals is the wrong thing to do, and will make a bad situation far worse. 

“Encouraging countries to raise revenue through progressive taxation is a step in the right direction. However, to make this a reality, G7 governments must stop the enormous levels of tax dodging by corporations and wealthy individuals that rob hundreds of billions of dollars from the Global South every year. Instead, the G7 has abandoned the global deal on a minimum corporate tax, and is refusing to work together to tax the super-rich including billionaires. 

 “The debt crisis was already affecting Global South countries before the US-Israel war on Iran and its massive global economic impacts. The G7 should be suspending all debt payments from Global South governments that want it immediately, and obliging their banks and other private creditors to do the same. Instead, we got the same platitudes as last year.”