SOUTH African president Thabo Mbeki and Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade met on Saturday to finalise plans for the presentation of a combined African development plan, an Mbeki spokesman said. The “African Initiative”, as it is known, is a merger of the Millennium African Recovery Programme (MAP) led by Mbeki and the Omega Plan spearheaded Wade, and will be presented at an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Lusaka this week. It calls on African leaders to “consolidate democracy” and on the developed world to increase aid and investment. Representatives of the two presidents and of the heads of state of Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria merged the two plans at a two-day meeting in Pretoria earlier this week. – AFP