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Africa: G8 United to Fulfil Their Pledge
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BuaNews (Tshwane)
9 July 2008
Posted to the web 9 July 2008
Bathandwa Mbola
Japan
The Group of Eight (G8) richest nations in the world says it is committed to achieving the target it set for aid in Africa at the Gleneagles G8 Summit in 2005.
The G8 said in a communiqué on Development and Africa on Tuesday, that it was firmly committed to working towards fulfilling the commitments it had made on official development assistance made at Gleneagles and reaffirmed at last year's summit in Heiligendamm, Germany.
These commitments include increasing development assistance to Africa by $25 billion a year by 2010.
The nations had also undertaken to raise annual aid levels by $50 billion by 2010, of which $25 billion was meant for Africa.
The communiqué was released at the three-day G8 summit, currently taking place at in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
However, aid workers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) expressed concern about the pledge, saying donor countries might fail to meet their promises. They also said the funds were not legally binding and it was hard to track actual spending.
In the communiqué, the G8 said they would take a multi-faceted approach to promote synergies among the Millennium Development Goal-related development sectors such as health, water and education within the framework of sustainable development.
Efforts will be centred on a set of core principles of development policy that were endorsed at Heiligendamm, including promoting good governance based on transparency and rule of law and broad-based private sector-led growth.
The world leaders indicated that will work together as well as with other countries to address global health priorities and deliver on existing health commitments.
"We will also work to improve human security through protection and empowerment of individuals and communities.
"In addition, we emphasise the importance of education, science and technology as a means to facilitate development," the leaders said via the communiqué.
The G8 acknowledged that aid from the group and other donors should be reassessed with a view to increasing it for the period after 2010.
African development, as well as the food crisis and climate change, is high on the agenda for the G8 summit.
The leaders encouraged African countries to increase their investments climate and continue their efforts for economic and governance reform to stimulate the increased flows of private capital, domestic and foreign, necessary to sustain their growth and vibrancy, to make their progress on development irreversible.
Africa in recent years has made an impressive rise with an average annual growth rate of more than five percent, attracting increased foreign investment and trade flows.
An increase in private investment was needed, the G8 noted.
This can be achieved through various measures including strategies to build institutional capacity in financial markets, public private partnerships to develop infrastructure, financial and technical assistance and risk-sharing guarantees for entrepreneurs and support of investment funds.
Peace and security in Africa is fundamental to its sustainable development and therefore the leaders agreed to promote it through supporting the African Union and Regional Economic Communities in enhancing Africa's peacekeeping capabilities in particular the African Peace Security Architecture (APSA).
These including the African Standby Force (ASF) including training and equipment; through working with the African Union on assuring sustainable and flexible funding for African-led peace support operations; as well as through enabling seamless peacebuilding support- including to humanitarian, reconciliation, stabilization, recovery and reconstruction efforts and increased capacity of deployable civilian expertise.
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