Africa begs rich to boost aid
2005-04-19 17:10
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt - African leaders meeting in Egypt on Tuesday begged for cash ahead of July's G8 summit, but poor attendance showed tepid faith in the continent's ability to achieve the stability and transparency meant to underpin the meeting.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, hosting the summit of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, urged donors to boost their contributions.
"We stress the paramount necessity for our partners in development to deliver on their pledges," he said in his opening speech.
The report of the organisation's activities over the past year and its recommendations for the following, stressed the continent would need another US$50bn to $75bn in aid if it was to reach the United Nations' millennium goal of reducing global poverty by half by the year 2015.
The document presented to the leaders of some 30 African countries asked Nepad's steering committee to urge the Group of Eight leading industralised countries in the world to double aid in the short term and improve its coordination and distribution.
The current level of funding for Nepad stands at $10bn a year for cross-border infrastructure projects and the same amount to speed up the streamlining of African institutions.
The report urged the G8, whose next meeting is slated for July in Scotland, to propose a timetable for scrapping subsidies to specific countries and offer a mechanism enabling African products to penetrate the European market.
Nepad is an African initiative created in 2001 and aimed at revitalising the country's ailing economy by attracting private investors with progress in conflict-resolution and improved transparency.
The main novelty at this year's summit was expected to be the first report of the Peer Review Mechanism (PRM), aimed at improving governance among African countries.
This year's issue of the PRM report was due to focus on the performance of Ghana, Rwanda, Mauritania and Kenya, yet none of these four states despatched their president, keeping representation at minister level.
Nepad was still reeling from the scathing comment made at last year's summit by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, one of the body's founding members.
"I have great difficulties explaining what we have achieved when people at home and elsewhere ask me that question," he said in Johannesburg.
He claimed nothing had been achieved in some key sectors, including health, agriculture, education, infrastructure, information technology and telecommunications and science and technology.
Wade was absent from the Sharm el-Sheikh gathering, as was co-founder President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who preferred to set his sights on cooperation with Asia ahead of a summit in Jakarta.
The Asia-Africa summit would "offer the possibility for African and Asian countries to come together and indeed to form that strategic partnership," he said after talks in Indonesia.