End poverty deal looks to be dashed

HOPES for a historic deal to end poverty in Africa look set to be dashed at this week’s Gleneagles summit, unless the leaders of the rich world are ready to be more generous on aid and debt relief, development charities warned yesterday.

Britain’s Chancellor Gordon Brown said that some of the fundamental pillars of a new deal for Africa - 100% debt relief for the poorest countries and a doubling in aid - were already in place, three days before the G8 summit begins on Wednesday, .

But development charities Oxfam and ActionAid said that the deals currently on the table fall well short of what is really required.

They urged the leaders of the G8 nations to take a further step to meet Africa’s needs.

Saturday’s Live 8 concerts and Make Poverty History demonstrations were designed to put pressure on the leaders - from Britain, US, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia - to forge a new, more equitable relationship with Africa.

But campaigners said that the additional aid totalling $25 billion (€20.9bn) promised by the EU, US, Canada and Japan was well short of the $50bn (€41.8bn) a year which the United Nations says is needed from 2006.

And most of the new money will not come on stream until 2010, leading to a cumulative shortfall of $100bn (€83.6bn) by the end of the decade, said Oxfam.

Meanwhile, 100% debt relief is restricted to just 14 of the continent’s countries, when Mr Blair’s Commission for Africa said it was needed by all nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

The total relief on offer is only around 10-15% of the 10 billion dollar debt repayments made by 60 poor countries each year.