African Development Partners to Review Partnership

Development Partners to Review Partnership

BuaNews (Tshwane)
NEWS
15 November 2007
Posted to the web 15 November 2007
Algiers
African countries and their partners among developed nations have agreed to review their partnership to include taking urgent steps in terms of financial aid, grants, debt settlement and more equitable global trade.

The agreement was reached earlier this week at the Ninth Africa Partnership Forum (APF), which showed that Africa’s challenges were not impossible provided that the political will expressed was put into practice.

The forum, which began last week, agreed that urgent steps had to be taken or Africa would fail to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The eight MDGs are:

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

• Goal 5: Improve maternal health

• Goal 6: Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The substantial efforts made so far by Africa’s partners, especially the Group of Eight most developed nations, remained below expectations of Africa and the commitment made by the international community, the participants concluded.

They also called for increased public aid to development, which had dropped lately, stressing that such financing needed long-term commitments.

It was necessary to facilitate African countries’ access to new grants and low interest loans to enable these countries to avert the vicious circle of debt.

The participants also noted that Africa had fallen short of expectations concerning the fight against corruption, in spite of the efforts exerted by African States in the promotion of good governance.

Representatives of the African Union, the European Commission as well as those of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and development countries unanimously underlined the “persistence of gaps and deficiencies in the devices of the fight against corruption”.

They called on African States “to assume their responsibilities” in this regard. The developed countries’ contributions in this field, the Norwegian representative said, would be to grant technical aid and assistance in the legal field in order to help recover embezzled funds.

Embezzlement remained an obstacle to poverty alleviation and the development of democracy, the participants noted, adding, however, that despite these deficiencies, Africa was experiencing progress in the field of good governance in recent years.