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African
leaders call on G8 to honour
aid pledge
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 TOYAKO,
Japan(July 8,2008) - 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.
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.
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 G8 comprises the United States, Japan, France, Britain, Germany,
Canada, Italy and Russia.
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