G-8 leaders agree in principle to support NEPAD
Regional, Politics, 6/3/2003

The world's eight richest nations, facing calls to spend more on developing country aid or risk missing agreed goals to fight poverty, pledged to speed up African debt relief, South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki told a news conference on Sunday.

Chirac has invited leaders from a dozen emerging nations including Brazil, China, India, Malaysia and South Africa for an "enlarged dialogue," followed by talks with African leaders on the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

Chirac also would like his G8 partners to make Africa a priority, addressing problems like debt relief, the HIV /AIDS pandemic and access to clean drinking water.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also took part in the expanded talks.

The G8 groups the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Italy and Russia.

"The G8 heads of government recognized that there hasn't been sufficient progress on this question," Mbeki said after meeting the Group of Eight leaders at a working dinner with leaders on the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) at a summit in the French spa of Evian.

Earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pressed the G8 for more progress on debt and dismantling trade barriers to meet the ambitious plan to cut poverty, agreed to in 2000.

"Formidable challenges lie ahead if we are to even come close to meeting the goals," Annan told the G8 leaders.

G8 summit chairman, President Jacques Chirac of France, is pushing for more progress on NEPAD, an African-inspired plan aimed at hauling the continent out of poverty. He has already unveiled proposals for a moratorium on farm export subsidies and suggested studying how to shield African farmers from fluctuating commodity prices.

"The U.S. and the UK found $70 billion to fight the war in Iraq. They can't find $25 billion to halve poverty in Africa and put every child in school," said an executive of the humanitarian group Oxfam.

The proportion of people living in extreme poverty has risen in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, central and eastern Europe and former Soviet states, Annan said, adding that only East Asia and the Pacific were on track to meet their goals of easing the burden on the poor.

Annan called for an increase in aid to $100 billion a year, up from $57 billion last year, to meet the Millennium Development Goals agreed by 147 world leaders in 2000.

Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva challenged the G8 to create a fund to fight global hunger. He said money could come from a tax on the international arms trade or reinvesting a percentage of developing countries' debt payments.

Britain is seeking support for its plan to double poor country aid through an international finance facility.

Bush is expected to call on the rich nations' club to match US efforts to fight AIDS after he signed into law a 15-billion-dollar (13 billion euro) plan to combat the disease in Africa and the Caribbean.

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