'Promises are made but not kept'

2005-07-04 11:04

Sirte - With the media spotlight firmly on the world's poorest peoples as the G8 summit approaches, the African Union (AU) is calling on the world's richest nations to fulfil their promises of aid to the continent.

"The fact that we still have underdevelopment in Africa shows a lot still remains to be done, both by Africa and by our partners, and African participation in the G8 summit will be the occasion to get this message across", said Rene N'Guettia Kouassi, the AU's director of economic affairs.

"It's true there is meeting after meeting, commitment after commitment, but it never has any effect, any impact; promises are made but not kept," he said adding: "If they (the rich nations) continue making promises they don't keep, Africa will lose hope."

Africa only continent to become poorer

African countries are trying to make the most of a rare spell as the centre of world attention in the run-up to the Gleneagles G8 meeting, a summit that will also be attended by a handful of African leaders, diplomats said.

Africa is the only continent to have become poorer over the past 25 years, according to the United Nations (UN), with some 300 million people living on less than $1 a day.

At a summit in June in the Nigerian capital Abuja, six African heads of state and representatives from some 10 other countries agreed to ask the world economic powers to extend the debt relief package announced in June to all other African nations.

A western diplomat on the sidelines of the Sirte AU summit said the AU heads of state are expected to say at the summit "they are very grateful to (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair (over the issue of debt relief)".

Blair hopes to double aid

It was Blair who is largely credited with having pushed through a G8 debt relief package worth about $40bn in favour of the world's most impoverished countries, most of them in Africa, in June.

Blair, also hopes to double aid to the continent, to $50bn by 2010.

"The G8 has to understand a developed Africa can serve its own interests, contributes to world peace; means a larger market for western industrialists and limits the HIV epidemic", said Kouassi, pointing out Western powers "do not always play fair" and accusing them of continuing outdated policies worthy of another century, notably in the field of cotton.

African nations accuse developed countries, and notably the United States, of contravening World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and continuing subventions to their own cotton producers, a policy that handicaps African producers.

"We're tired of the image of Africa as a beggar. Development aid is the way for the West to give back to Africa what it took from us," said Elisabeth Tankeu, AU commissioner for trade and industry.

- AFP