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G8 Leaders Announce Multi-Billion-Dollar Aid to Africa

Posted on: Friday, 8 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

GLENEAGLES, Scotland: G8 leaders, defying a bloody terrorist bombing in London, announced on Friday a major commitment to increase annual development aid to Africa and other countries.

A statement at the end of the summit said commitments from the Group of Eight richest countries in the world, and other donors, would mean an increase in aid to Africa by US$25 billion a year by 2010, more than doubling aid to the continent compared with 2004.

The statement, citing an estimate from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, that donor pledges to official development assistance for all developing countries would increase by around US$50 billion a year by 2010.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking of a "new partnership with Africa," said the G8 leaders had agreed a "US$50 billion uplift in aid" that was apparently destined for all developing countries.

A British Government official said later that most of the money would be earmarked for Africa.

The British charity Oxfam said the US$50 billion increase by 2010 fell short of the UN Millennium Development Goals by US$50 billion. It said current development aid amounts to just under US$80 billion a year.

Blair said the Group of Eight's promise of help for the world's poor contrasted starkly with the cruelty of terrorism shown in Thursday's bombings.

The package also includes "the signal for a new deal on trade, the cancellation of the debts for the poorest nations, universal access to AIDS treatment," said Blair.

He did not make clear over what period the aid would be delivered, but the draft anti-poverty plan discussed ahead of the summit mentioned an extra US$50 billion in aid a year by 2010.

Nor did Blair specify how much debt was cancelled. G8 finance ministers agreed last month to immediately write off US$40 billion to 18 of the world's poorest nations, most of them in Africa.

Blair also told reporters there was a plan for a new peacekeeping force in Africa in exchange for the commitment of African leaders to democracy, good governance and the rule of law.

"All of this does not change the world tomorrow, it is a beginning, not an end," he said. "None of this today will match the same ghastly impact of the cruelty of terror."

Blair was speaking at the Gleneagles golf resort with the leaders of the G8 industrial countries and five African countries beside him.

Source: China Daily; North American ed.

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