Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said Africa faces an aid shortfall of 40 billion US dollar, BBC online reports Monday.
Speaking at the launch of a new report by the British Africa Commission, he said African leaders had to live up to their promises on good governance. Mr Annan also chastised (hudflettede) the industrialised world for failing to meet the pledges they gave to double aid by 2010.
– Our reports show that at the present rate of growth the G8’s pledge to double assistance to Africa by 2010 will not be fulfilled, Mr Annan said at the launch of the report in London.
But the report, written by the panel set up to monitor progress towards the Africa Commissions goals, failed to name which industrialised countries were not coming up with the money.
On the other side, Mr Annan said that Africa had to do “much, much more” to do to keep its promise to improve governance. He singled out Zimbabwe and Darfur as two crises that had to be addressed, and called on African leaders to act.
Mr Annan also warned that the global food crisis threatens to reverse what he said were many of Africas hard-fought gains. – With 100 million people on the brink of abject poverty, the cost of food will not be measured in the price of wheat and rice, but in the rising number of infant and child deaths across Africa, he said.
The Africa Commission was set up in 2005 by then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair with the idea that African countries would improve their democratic credentials, while the west would double aid by 2010.
Se også http://www.commissionforafrica.org
