Kikwete urges G8 to help Africa
DAILY NEWS Reporter
Daily News; Tuesday,July 08, 2008 @08:09
PRESIDENT Jakaya Kikwete has asked rich nations to continue supporting African countries in their daunting struggle for economic revival.
Mr Kikwete, who was addressing the G8 Summit in Hokkaido, Japan yesterday, hailed Japan's decision to double its Official Development Assistance (ODA) for Africa over the next five years.
"Africa needs the support of friends in the developed countries to compliment and supplement our efforts in our daunting struggle for economic revival," he said.
President Kikwete, who is also the African Union (AU) chairman, said if Africa was left on its own it would take it many decades to successfully transform its economies from poverty and backwardness to prosperity and modernity.
"It is even worse now when the continent is facing serious crises in the form of oil and food price rises. These crises are threatening to wipe out most economic gains achieved in the past decade," he said.
The AU chairman said the continent welcomed the areas of focus for support by the Japanese ODA in infrastructure development and health care.
He cited other areas as education, increasing rice production and promotion of Japanese tourism investment in Africa as well as trade with Africa.
"All these areas are critical for promoting socio-economic growth. There is no serious development without the development of the physical infrastructure: roads, railways, ports, airports, electricity, water supply and telecommunications," he said.
President Kikwete told the G8 Summit that Africa's interest was, however, beyond ODA, stressing that the continent's sustainable future lies in increased trade and investment – both domestic and foreign.
He said owing to low savings domestically, Africa has been encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI) which, however, at 2 per cent of world flows of FDI, the amount of FDI that Africa receives still remains lamentably low. Meanwhile, as G8 leaders lunched and talked with African heads of state at a luxury hotel yesterday activists accused the rich nations' club of backpedalling on pledges to double aid to Africa.
The issue of African poverty that tops the agenda at the start of a three-day summit in Japan is closely linked with rising food and fuel prices and the contentious topic of how to fight global warming, which the G8 will tackle later in the week.
The G8 has invited seven African leaders to join the opening day of its annual summit, taking place on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Max Lawson, a policy adviser to Oxfam, a British advocacy group, said the summit was arguably the most important G8 gathering in a decade.
"The world is clearly facing multiple crises -- serious, serious economic problems, both rich and poor countries. But it is poor people who suffer the most, suffering hugely from food price increases," Lawson told reporters.
At its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the G8 agreed to double aid by 2010 to 50 billion, half of which would go to Africa.
But a report last month by the Africa Progress Panel, which was set up to monitor implementation of the Gleneagles commitments, said that under current spending plans the G8 will fall 40 billion US dollars short of its target.