G8 result bare minimum for Africa - Annan

from Reuters Alert Net

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON - Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations who met in Japan this week did the bare minimum for Africa and must not be allowed to backslide from even that, as they have in the past, former UN head Kofi Annan said.

On climate change, aid, food prices and trade the G8 had warm words but made scant real progress, reaffirming a 2005 pledge to give the continent $50 billion by 2010 -- of which only $10 billion has so far been given -- and calling for completion of the long-stalled Doha world trade negotiations.

"We are ... putting pressure on them to honour what they have committed to including coming out with a timetable that would indicate how they are going to implement what they have promised," Annan told Reuters by telephone.

"What is the point of a huge jump in promises when they haven't delivered what they promised in 2005," he said from Sweden where he is taking his first holiday since mediating the Kenyan political crisis earlier this year.

Annan was speaking for the Africa Progress Panel, a lobby group including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, musician Bob Geldof, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and former International Monetary Fund head Michel Camdessus.

"It is not a huge amount of progress. But if we can push them to deliver the $40 billion promised between now and 2010 I think we would have achieved something," he said.

He welcomed the positive G8 comments on the urgent need to complete the Doha round of trade talks aimed at easing global commerce, but said he wasn't holding his breath.

"A fair trading system with a level playing field that removes all the restrictions and the impediments to free trade ... will help African countries a lot," Annan said.

"Africa is going to be the next frontier and enlightened businessmen and leaders have seen that. They would much rather trade themselves out of poverty rather than live on handouts."

Annan called on African leaders and the international community to come up with a solution to the political crisis in Zimbabwe which he said was destabilising southern Africa.

The G8 summit condemned the re-election of President Robert Mugabe last month amid widespread violence and intimidation and agreed to impose more sanctions against his government.

"Some of the leaders of Zimbabwe tend to look at it as an internal problem. It is much bigger than that. It is a regional problem. It has thrown up several million refugees and this tends to destabilise your neighbours," Annan said.

"It is important that it be resolved."

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