The United Nations warned Tuesday that 20-million African children could be orphaned by Aids in 2010, as some 50 nations from the continent discussed peace and the failure of global trade talks at an African development conference here.
There are already 11-million African children orphaned by Aids and the number could rise to 20-million in 2010, World Food Programme executive director James Morris told a news conference in Tokyo.
The nightmare scenario for African children “potentially is the largest humanitarian crisis the world’s ever known,” Morris said.
“Orphans go to school less often, orphans are more poorly nourished, have worse health,” the WFP head said, adding there were 780 000 Aids orphans in Zimbabwe alone.
The plight of African children was among issues discussed at the third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (Ticad III), which opened on Monday with Japan’s pledge to give Africa one-billion dollars in aid.
“We discussed conflict-prevention, conflict-management and there was input from many countries, and Sierra Leone, for example, spoke and gave the update about what is going on in the country,” said a South African official.
Sierra Leone was ravaged by a civil war from 1991 to 2001 that left 200 000 dead and many thousands mutilated.
Rebels against the government funded much of their insurgency with illegal trade in “blood diamonds,” helping to leave the western African nation as one of the poorest countries in the world.
“We also discussed that we should put more resources in post-conflict reconstruction development. We do not put enough resources in post-conflict efforts,” the official said.
The situation in Liberia was also discussed during the session, he said.
Rebels and the government reached a peace deal in August with the departure into exile of former president Charles Taylor, bringing an end to 14 years of nearly continuous war.
WFP’s Morris said children, who by rights should be in school, accounted for 70 to 80% of total combatants in Liberia.
“For the first time you have a generation of children in Liberia less well educated than the previous generation,” Morris said.
Apart from the session on peace and conflict in Africa, the conference held meetings on agriculture, health and infrastructure.
“We talked about agricultural development and ways to increase our productivity … We also talked about that African nations were unhappy with the result of the Cancun (WTO) meeting,” said CM Kanyenda, director of agricultural development at the Malawi ministry of agriculture.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) talks, seen as vital to spurring momentum toward a new global trade pact, fell apart on September 14 without an accord in Cancun, Mexico, due to bitter disagreements between rich and poor nations with agricultural trade a key sticking point.
“Because of the collapse of the Cancun meeting, we believe a new meeting should be convened soon,” Kanyenda said.
The Tokyo conference has attracted 23 heads of state or government from Africa and officials from 37 nations, and representatives of international organizations including the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Ticad is a Japanese initiative started in 1993 to raise international support for African development issues and has been held every five years.
At the second Ticad conference in 1998, Japan pledged to provide $750-million to African countries over a five-year period to ensure basic human needs.
Over the past decade, Japanese assistance to African development has totalled $12-billion. But in terms of trade, just one percent of Japan’s total volume of trade is with African countries and more than 50% of that trade is with South Africa. – AFP