Earlier today, Dorothy Ngoma, of Malawi said “It is immoral that today in 2010, a thousand women are dying every day in childbirth.”

Tonight, pregnant women and young children can draw little comfort from the G8 leaders’ meager offering to alleviate their suffering. 

“Shameful” was the first word uttered by anti-poverty activists in the Alternative Media centre as they watched Stephen Harper announce that his vaunted signature initiative as this year’s leader of the G8 has raised only $5 billion dollars from his G8 partners.  $5 billion - when every credible agency says $30 billion is needed to fill the gap.  Of that, the G8’s fair share is $24 Billion.

On the eve of the G8 and G20 Summits, 61% of Canadians believe their country should increase the amount of money spent on international aid. 

Would you like a “future,” a “plain-vanilla mortgage,” a “European option,” perhaps a “swaption”? You might think these are the latest exotic offering at a your local hipster café, but they are in fact complex financial instruments. More precisely, they are all examples of the now infamous “derivatives.” Derivatives, so little known and even less understood by most of us, and so cherished by bankers and speculators, have been around since the 1970s, but the financial crisis which began in the U.S. three years ago, and is currently rocking Europe, has put them under an unaccustomed spotlight.

When Stephen Harper sent his anti-tax crusaders around the globe to preach against a bank tax, he not only reinforced Canada’s growing image as “tea party North”, he left massive confusion in his wake.

Many people now equate the bank tax with the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) popularly known as the Robin Hood Tax and an idea dear to the heart of the anti-poverty and climate change community.

As an old hack now ancient NGO flack, please let me set the record straight.

As I child, I loved TV’s “The Lone Ranger”, that great champion of justice whose Hi-yo silver bullets rescued the good guys every week.  I was immune to the inherent racism embodied in Tonto, “his faithful Indian companion” because Tonto was played by Jay Silverheels (aka Harold K. Smith) from Six Nations Reserve near my mother’s hometown in Brantford Ontario. My Uncle Hughie had played professional lacrosse with him and that gave me great playground creds.

Now, a new Silver Bullet’s arrived on the scene that could slay global poverty.  It’s actually been in the wings for a while, but thanks to the greed of the international financial community, it’s an idea whose time has come.

My job is rewarding, but I'll admit, sometimes working in the campaign to end poverty can get a little discouraging. Every time you seem to be making progress, dreadful things happen and it all starts rolling back down the hill.

That's why for very personal reasons, I am so happy when "STAND UP" comes around. It's restorative. For four years now, millions of people across this world of ours, come together over three days to "STAND UP AND TAKE ACTION NOW TO END POVERTY." It's inspiring. And it's as if the event is on steroids, it's growing so rapidly.

Pittsburgh -- Well, this is my second G-Summit -- and there are still more hard lessons to learn. Harder to swallow too, since life for the world’s poorest has become even more wretched since last July’s G8 in Italy. It’s an even tougher slog here, getting the needs of the neediest on the media’s agenda, let alone the attention of 20 of the world’s most powerful leaders – emerged and emerging.

Just about everyone working in development projects almost anywhere in the world has known the secret to success for some time -- put women in charge and your chances of a positive outcome are greatly enhanced.

That's not female chauvanism, it's simple fact. Educate women, get them in good health, help finance their early endeavours and the results will benefit the whole community.

Canada will need to offer global leadership as host of G8 in 2010 to deliver results on unfinished business from this year's G8. Weak leadership by the Italian host, Prime Minister Berlusconi, has resulted in very few concrete new initiatives for the world's poor at the G8 Summit that ended today. Having cut its aid spending by 56 per cent this year, Italy lacked the moral authority or will to address the challenges posed by the economic, climate change and food crisies which treatens to reverse the real progress that has been made in reducing global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. This is a shame because the change in the U.S.

Well, I thought the last day of the G8 Summit might be ending on just a slightly brighter note than the first. The buzz all week was that the leaders of the rich world would ante up $15 billion in food aid and development money. Then a few hours before the final wrap, we heard it was $20 billion...still short of the $30 billion the FAO says is needed, but the news certainly went down well amongst the civil society people here. But when the actual statement came out, it was yet another indigestible fudge. The bold italics below are textbook examples of how to look good without actually doing anything...yet.