Prior to the G8 St. Petersburg summit, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who played host to the G8 summit last year, urged the upcoming summit to build upon the initiatives on Africa.

    Blair's spokesman said Thursday that, at Britain's request, Russian President Vladimir Pin has set aside time for follow-up talks on ways to help pull Africa out of chronic poverty, including having freer and fairer trade with impoverished African countries.

    "The agenda which we drew up and made so much progress on at Gleneagles -- Africa, climate change -- is continuing to be the agenda of the G8," Blair's spokesman said.

    Earlier this week, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said the G8 summit in St. Petersburg should not forget promises they made to Africa a year ago to provide more aid, trade and debt relief.

    "We must deliver on the promises made last year to this great continent, to help provide the opportunity for the poorest Africans to lift themselves out of poverty and make steady progress toward a better life for future generations," he said during a visit to Africa.

    Wolfowitz also called on the G8 countries and emerging economies like China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa to reach an agreement on stalled world trade talks.

    In the meantime, European Commission President Jose M. Barroso suggested the G8 summit discuss different ways of offering aid to Africa.

    "Money alone is not enough, sound governance goes to the heart of sustainable African development," Barroso told reporters on Tuesday.

    "Our second priority is to keep Africa center stage," Barroso added, who had also sent a letter to Putin, urging Moscow to keep up the momentum.

    "On aid financing, Europe is on track to fulfill its commitment to double aid by 2010. It has not only met its commitment to raise aid to 0.39 percent of GNI by 2006 but will probably pass this mark, with aid worth 0.42 percent of GNI this year," the EC chief explained.

    However, Western observers still doubt about the enthusiasm of the G8 countries over their aid to Africa.

    For one thing, the United States and the European Union (EU) are still reluctant to cut their agricultural subsidies, making it more difficult to achieve a breakthrough at the Doha round talks of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

    According to WTO, the developed countries provide their farmers with some 1 billion U.S. dollars in subsidies every day in total, which indirectly causes some 20 billion dollars of losses for African countries.

    Just as Lionel Beehner, an expert from the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations, put it:" Poverty relief will be on the agenda (of the G8 St. Petersburg summit), but do not expect any new commitments on development aid." Enditem