G8 Scorecard Shows Britain with Highest Compliance Rate

24 March 2010

As Canada prepares to host this year’s G8 summit in June, a new report shows how well G8 nations have kept their promises since last year’s meeting in Italy. Some promises were kept, while others remain unfulfilled, especially promises to developing nations.

The G8 Research Group has released its latest compliance report, covering the six-month period after the summit last July in L’Aquila, Italy. A second report will be released just before the summit in Muskoka, Canada.

Erin Fitzgerald, chair of the Toronto-based research group, says, “We select about 20 to 24 commitments every year. We look for commitments that represent a broad cross-section of the issues on the G8 agenda.”

The scores are based on allocation of resources and creation of new programs in complying with pledges made.

Making the grade

“Historically speaking, the top performer of the G8 countries has been the United Kingdom. And that is the same case this year. Their average compliance score was 0.63, which is reasonably high for the interim compliance report, where compliance tends to be a bit low,” she says.

Research shows compliance increases shortly before the next G8 summit.

Other high scorers include Japan and Canada, who both received a score of around 0.5. Japan edged out Canada for second place, a position Canada normally holds.