British officials continued to struggle yesterday to get all G8 countries - the main holdout being Germany - to commit to an extra $50 billion in overseas aid by 2010.
The results will become clear when today's communiqué is released. But outside the official meetings the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that constitute the Make Poverty History campaign are engaged in an equally furious internal debate about whether such a move would deserve praise or derision.
There is rising discontent among many of these NGOs with the rock stars Bob Geldof and Bono and with Data (Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa), the small group of campaigners that work with them, for praising the progress made by Tony Blair, the British prime minister, rather than condemning the paucity of his ambition.
NGOs are reluctant to speak about each other on the record for fear of damaging campaign unity. But it is clear that discontent with Geldof and Bono, and with Data, is widespread.
"Bob Geldof arrived here and said we have a pretty good deal on debt relief done," said one campaigns officer from a large NGO. "In fact, we don't. It isn't helpful for campaigners to buy into Downing Street spin."
Make Poverty History is a coalition of hundreds of NGOs including well-known names such as Oxfam, Action Aid, Christian Aid and Cafod, as well as Data itself. Earlier this week its leaders criticised Gordon Brown, the British chancellor, for spinning the agreed debt relief deal as being bigger than it was.
Behind these arguments is a question of managing expectations and defining progress. For example, the UK government defines the extra $50 billion in global aid as a real-terms increase from last year's overall total of $79 billion to $129 billion by 2010.
The Make Poverty History campaign wants to discount promises of future rises that have already been made. This would reduce Mr Blair's "$50 billion deal" to a modest increase of $10 billion.
Mike Aaronson, director-general of Save the Children, met Mr Blair on Wednesday. Afterwards he continued to argue for a much bigger deal including an extra $50 billion from next year. "Without this breakthrough, this summit will be a failure for the world's poor,"he said.
But Jamie Drummond of Data defended the strategy of co-operation rather than confrontation. "To get $50 billion extra by 2010 will require billions more than is on the table right now," he said.