African leaders call on G8 to honour aid pledge

from Reuters, Africa

By Yoko Nishikawa and Jeremy Pelofsky

TOYAKO, Japan - African leaders urged the Group of Eight rich nations on Monday to keep promises to help their continent and pleaded with them to remember that soaring oil and food prices were making their poverty worse.

The G8 has been accused by activists of reneging on the promise made at its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to double aid by 2010 to $50 billion, half of which would go to Africa.

"Some African leaders just wanted to emphasise that while appreciating G8 leaders' commitment to help Africa in past G8 summits, they just wanted to point that they would like to see these commitments fully implemented," Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said.

"They also sent their message that they would really like to see no backtracking, as such, on the part of G8 leaders on their commitments."

The issue of African poverty topped the agenda at the start of a three-day G8 summit in Japan, closely linked with rising food and fuel prices and the contentious topic of how to fight global warming, which the leaders will tackle later in the week.

Citing a final draft of the G8 leaders' communique, Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported on Monday that they would call rising food and oil prices a "serious threat".

Japan invited the leaders of Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania to join the day's discussion at a luxury hotel wreathed in fog on the northern island of Hokkaido.

"African leaders asked for the G8 leadership to help those who are hurt significantly by rising oil prices, such as showing their leadership in talks with OPEC countries," a Japanese official said after the meeting.

BETTER MONITORING

World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who was also at the talks, said the leaders discussed a system to better track the aid to ensure commitments were honoured.

"There was a desire to have greater comfort on both sides on the delivery. So there was some movement towards the idea that the G8 in their process -- perhaps with their sherpas -- may engage with the African Union commission," Zoellick said.

"Countries need to deliver on their promises, and that was the tone that was generally accepted in the discussion," he told a news conference.

A report last month by the Africa Progress Panel, which was set up to monitor implementation of the Gleneagles commitments, said that under current spending plans the G8 will fall $40 billion short of its target.

This year marks the half-way point to reach eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the U.N. General Assembly in September 2000 to reduce world poverty by 2015.

With grain prices having doubled since January 2006, Africa needs more help, not less, activists say.

A preliminary World Bank study released last week estimated that up to 105 million more people could drop below the poverty line due to rising food prices, including 30 million in Africa.

In Liberia, the cost of food for a typical household jumped by 25 percent in January alone, increasing the poverty rate to over 70 percent from 64 percent, the study found.

Max Lawson, a policy adviser to Oxfam, a British advocacy group, said the summit was arguably the most important G8 gathering in a decade.

"The world is clearly facing multiple crises -- serious, serious economic problems, both rich and poor countries. But it is poor people who suffer the most, suffering hugely from food price increases," Lawson told reporters.

ZIMBABWE DIVISIONS

World leaders took the opportunity to raise the prospect of more sanctions against Zimbabwe unless quick progress is made to end a political crisis after a run-off election in June in which Robert Mugabe was the only presidential candidate.

The opposition candidate withdrew amid widespread violence against his supporters.

They told the African leaders at the gathering to deal with Mugabe or trade and investment on the whole continent would be affected, a Canadian official told reporters.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete suggested that African leaders shared the G8's concerns, but differed over the best response.

The G8 comprises the United States, Japan, France, Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy and Russia.

Many critics and even member countries suggest the G8, formed in 1975 with just six members in the wake of the first oil crisis, should expand to take in large developing nations to better represent the world.

On Monday hundreds of demonstrators from Japan and other countries marched in heavy rain toward the summit venue, carrying signs slamming the rich nations' cosy club.

Heavy security meant that they were kept several kilometres (miles) away. Two groups tried to take unauthorised routes but were turned back by dozens of police.

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