G8 countries weigh up aid promises

from AFP

TOKYO (AFP) — The Group of Eight industrialised nations on Saturday agreed to send a "strong message" to back growth in poor countries, and cautioned themselves to meet donation pledges, officials said.

G8 development officials began a two-day ministerial meeting here on how to ease suffering in Africa and other impoverished states as well as bolster their efforts in foreign development aid.

They also held a meeting with their counterparts from fast growing economies such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa.

During the meetings, participants reached consensus that it was important to boost support for growth and the independence of developing nations particularly in Africa, a Japanese foreign ministry official said.

"Participants argued that the G8 development ministers should send a strong message to the international community to strengthen support for developing nations," the official said.

They also affirmed that the G8 countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- should "strictly" fulfil their fund pledges as they have promised, the official said.

On Sunday, the G8 countries are scheduled to announce an outline of their proposal for a summit of G8 leaders in Japan's northern resort of Toyako in July.

"The international community is closely watching results of the Toyako summit," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told the meeting.

"As G8 development ministers, we want to send a strong message to the international community so that we can provide beneficial input for discussions of our leaders."

Calls are growing for world powers to avoid allowing the gloomy global economic outlook to distract them from fighting poverty.

"We cannot let the international and domestic economic concerns deter us from meeting our development commitments," Angel Gurria, secretary general of Paris-based think-tank the OECD, told reporters here.

"This is because poverty is the ultimate systemic risk. It is a breeding ground for the proliferation of terrorism, armed conflicts, environmental degradation, cross-border diseases and organised crime," he said.

The two-day meeting comes amid growing concern about rising food prices that are adding to the burden of some of the world's poorest citizens. Experts say that more investment is needed in agriculture to try to address food shortages.

"The agriculture sector has been starved of infrastructure investment," Ifzal Ali, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, said this week.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development separately said Friday that most donors need to step up efforts to meet their stated aid commitments.

British charity Oxfam said the figures showed that rich countries had broken promises made to substantially increase assistance to developing countries.

"These figures don't lie," said Jeremy Hobbs of Oxfam International.

"They show a clear lack of leadership on bringing much-needed funding to poor countries," he said, calling on the G8 nations to take urgent action at the G8 summit in three months' time.

Japan, which has been officially pacifist since World War II, has long used aid as a diplomatic tool.

It was the world's top donor until 2000, but slipped to rank fifth among the world's 22 major aid donors in 2007, according to the OECD.