Sudan promised $4.5bn
2005-04-12 20:16
Oslo - Donor countries pledged to give $4.5bn over the next two years to cover Sudan's humanitarian and reconstruction needs, organizers of a 60-nation conference said on Tuesday.
"I am very pleased with the amount that has been pledged," Norwegian development aid minister Hilde Frafjord Johnson said in closing the two-day conference.
"I think the main point is that we have a strong commitment to Sudan."
The United States was a major donor, pledging $1.7bn.
A peace accord signed in January ended a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan, but violence continues unabated in a separate conflict in the troubled western region of Darfur.
Johnson cautioned that collecting the exact amounts promised from donors could be difficult, but said she considered the pledges a guarantee that the most basic needs would be met.
Former southern rebel leader John Garang, now a member of Sudan's new government, said everything, from roads to power, was needed in the south.
"Give me $10bn and I assure you, I will spend it," Garang said.
In opening the meeting on Monday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said $2.6bn was needed by 2007 to help Sudan, much of it as immediate cash to prevent 2 million people in the south from running out of food within a few weeks.
"This is a time of choosing for Sudan," said US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick.
Either build peace, democracy and economic recovery or "Sudan could slip back into the depths" of conflict, he said.
- SAPA