G8 must fill £15bn aid gap - Oxfam

Ahead of a meeting of G8 finance ministers in Osaka, Japan, the aid agency called on Chancellor Alistair Darling to drive the governments towards an "ambitious agenda" for dealing with poverty.

Oxfam also demanded the UK set an example by dropping domestic targets for biofuels - which the charity said is playing a significant role in pushing up food prices - and upping its targets to cut greenhouse gases to 80% by 2050.

A report from the charity said the most urgent priority for the governments at the summit was to fill a 30 billion US dollar (£15 billion) aid gap.

Oxfam said G8 leaders were set to miss by that amount a pledge made in 2005 to increase aid levels by 50 billion US dollars (£25 billion) a year by 2010 - at a cost of five million lives.

The charity warned that halfway through the time frame to meet the Millennium Development Goals to tackle poverty and hunger and improve health, education and the environment, "instead of coasting to victory, the world is staring at defeat".

The report said increases in food prices threatened to reverse the gains that had been made, and called for a rethink of biofuels policy.

And it said rich countries should make ambitious commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions to help keep global warming below dangerous levels of 2C or more. Developing countries are already being hit the hardest by the effects of climate change, it added.

The aid agency also urged the G8 countries to paying a fair share of the 50 billion dollars a year needed to help developing nations adapt to global warming - and not divert the cash from existing aid budgets.

Mark Lawson, the report's author, said: "Poor countries face a triple injustice. Not only do they have to pay the price for rich countries' pollution, but the little money available to help them is being diverted from already promised and much-needed aid. The crowning injustice is that they are being asked to repay this money with interest."