DAVID WILLIAMS, Genoa | Sunday
GROUP of Eight leaders, surrounded by protesters who accuse them of failing the poor, announced on Saturday a new deal to eradicate poverty in Africa.
“We have decided today to forge a new partnership to address issues crucial to African development,” the leaders said in the Genoa Plan for Africa, issued during a summit in the Italian port city.
G8 leaders would appoint personal representatives to liaise with African leaders in drawing up a concrete plan to be approved at the next G8 summit in Canada, it said.
The partnership covers questions of hunger, conflict, democracy, health including Aids, corruption, private investment, and boosting trade, the leaders said.
“Peace, stability and the eradication of poverty in Africa are among the most important challenges we face in the new millennium,” it said.
The plan was drawn up as the leaders met in the splendour of Genoa’s Palazzo Ducale, protected by 20 000 riot and paramilitary police in a no-go “red zone” from anti-globalisation protesters.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was a driving force behind the Genoa Plan for Africa, to be developed by G8 leaders’ personal representatives and African counterparts, said a British government official.
Blair had spent much of the past 24 hours garnering agreement on the scheme, British officials said.
French President Jacques Chirac had also called on the G8 leaders to support the consolidated plan for Africa, said a French official.
African leaders had come to Genoa with an African Initiative, merging a Millennium African Recovery Plan devised by South African President Thabo Mbeki and an Omega plan, drawn up by Senegal’s leader Abdoulaye Wade.
G8 leaders said they welcomed the plan, which emphasised “democracy, transparency, good governance, rule of law and human rights as fundamental factors of development.
“This initiative provides the basis for a new intensive partnership between Africa and the developed world.”
The Group of Eight leaders, stressing their legitimacy against challenges from anti-globalisation protesters, have been at pains to emphasise their work in helping the poor.
“The G8 must take more initiatives to help Africa,” Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told a news conference.
“We have agreed that at the next summit next year in Canada, a pact between Africa and the G8 will be an essential point in our discussions,” said the prime minister, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.
“Such a pact is necessary when you look at the situation of many countries on the African continent,” Verhofstadt added.
The G8 — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — must also bear down on conflicts in Africa by “reducing or banning trade in light arms,” he said.
G8 leaders joined UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday in launching a $1,2-billion war chest to fight Aids and other major diseases, which are ravaging Africa.
The fund, to be operational by year’s end, aims to mobilize rich countries to help developing nations, especially in Asia and in Africa, where 25 million of the world’s 36 million infected people reside, to fight Aids in a two-pronged attack of prevention and treatment. – AFP