body-container-line-1
20.06.2008 Business & Finance

Africa Sends SOS To G-8

By Daily Guide
Africa Sends SOS To G-8
20.06.2008 LISTEN

A NEW report by the Africa Progress Panel says if G-8 countries continue to renege on their pledges to Africa, the continent will fail to meet its development goals.

Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General, who launched the report in Johannesburg Monday, noted that a $40 billion aid vacuum has been created since Gleaneagles and this is likely to throw the continent's future plans into disarray.

According to Mr Annan, “the G8's commitment to double assistance to Africa by 2010 is not likely to be fulfilled” notwithstanding progress on debt relief and significant increases in assistance by individual countries.

The former UN boss, who now chairs the panel, demanded immediate international action against the urgent threat of world food prices.

He stated that the ongoing world food crisis threatens Africa's years of economic progress as a hundred million people continue to recoil into absolute poverty.

“Unless some way can be found to halt and reverse the current trend in food prices there will be a significant increase in hunger, malnutrition, and infant and child mortality.”

Mr Annan additionally called for a range of measures to be undertaken to increase the quantity of food on international markets and to provide greater financial assistance to international agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP) and also governments of affected countries.

Certain six policy areas were highlighted by the report as needing attention at the impending G8 Summit in Hokkaido, Japan.

These included double assistance to Africa by 2010, and the need to draw clear timetables and increased transparency to improve the quality of aid.

On trade, it urged countries to immediately review arrangements for stockpiling food, while a comprehensive rethinking of trade policy is needed to boost agricultural production around the world.

It also underlined the need for the G8 to increase funding for renewable energy and invest in adaptation and the prevention of deforestation to arrest the climate change.

On infrastructure, the report recommended the development of strategies to connect farmers to markets in connection with efforts to increase access to water and improve sanitation.

The 11-member Africa Progress Panel was launched in 2007 as a unique and independent authority on Africa to focus world leaders' attention on delivering on their commitments to the continent.

By Samuel Boadi

body-container-line