African countries urge the rich to boost aid

by Hassen Zenati and Simon Apiku

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, April 19 (AFP) -

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) in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, urged donors to boost contributions. "We stress the paramount necessity for our partners in development to deliver on their pledges," he said.

A report on the organisation's activities over the past year and its recommendations for the coming year stressed the continent would need another 50 billion to 75 billion dollars in aid if it was to reach the UN millennium goal of reducing global poverty by half by the year 2015. The document presented to leaders of some 30 African countries asked NEPAD's steering committee to urge the Group of Eight leading industralised countries to double aid in the short term and improve its coordination and distribution.

The current level of funding for NEPAD stands at 10 billion dollars 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 set 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 continent'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.

"These years... have resulted in concrete progress in resolving existing conflicts on the continent and creating the climate for achieving peace and development, and taking serious steps towards consolidating good governance...," Mubarak said. Thie report was to focus on the performance of Ghana, Rwanda, Mauritius and Kenya. But officials charged that only Rwanda and Ghana had cooperated with the PRM and that Mauritius and Kenya were not ready. "We have decided to have another APRF (African Peer Review Forum) meeting before the next African summit" in Libya this year, Nigerian President and current African Union chairman Olusegun Obasanjo told reporters. But he downplayed concerns countries were reluctant to embrace the PRM.

"We are taking it very, very seriously," he said, noting that Sudan, Namibia, Zambia and Sao Tome also volunteered to be scrutinised. "It's an indication that some of us are doing things that we should be doing." NEPAD was still reeling from a 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. Wade was absent from the Sharm el-Sheikh gathering, as was co-founder Thabo Mbeki, the South African president. Obsanjo agreed NEPAD needed to do more. "An action plan that does not measure in concrete measures on the ground will eventually lead to frustration," he said.

With the much-touted, home-grown, name-and-shame mechanism off to a stuttering start, the crisis in Darfur also loomed large over the summit. Efforts to rekindle a dialogue between Khartoum and the rebels were discussed in two separate mini-summits. Darfur was seen as a first major test of the continent's conflict-resolution capacity, but the African Union troops despatched in the war-torn western Sudanese region have lacked political support to make an impact. In its assessment of activities over the past year, NEPAD nevertheless hailed some achievements, including in the field of technological development.

Last year a study by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum said most sub-Saharan countries were worse off economically today than they were directly after decolonisation. Per capita gross domestic product in sub-Saharan Africa today is 200 dollars lower than in 1974, it said. bur-sap/jmm/txw