by Lin Rong, Qi Wei
YOKOHAMA, Japan, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Delegates at an African development conference vowed here Friday their efforts toward boosting economic growth, ensuring human security and addressing climate change in Africa.
The delegates, coming from African countries and international and regional organizations, at the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV) also agreed on a concrete Yokohama Action Plan for the next five years and a follow-up mechanism to monitor the progress of the aid.
In response to the appeals from African countries, the highlights are put on building infrastructure and increasing agricultural productivity to accelerate broad-based economic growth in Africa.
As part of the efforts, the World Bank announced to scale up lending for infrastructure, including transport, energy, water and sanitation, and information communication technologies, from the current 2.6 billion US dollars investment to 3.3 billion per year over the coming three years.
Japan also pledged to provide loans up to 4 billion dollars to support, among other areas, infrastructure--especially road corridors and regional power projects- and agriculture.
Welcoming the efforts of the donation countries, African leaders also called for closer Africa-Asia cooperation and productive usage of international aid.
Uganda President Kaguta Museveni urged the removal of subsidies and other free trade barriers to boost the export of African products. His Kenyan counterpart Mwai Kibaki called for more investment in value addition to African products as one way of addressing the current trade imbalance that exists between Africa and the rich nations.
"They should also work with the continent to ensure that the assistance provided is relevant to the needs of the recipient countries and also targeted where it would be used most productively," Vice President of Botswana Lt. Gen. Mompati Sebogodi said.
Claiming millions of lives annually in Africa by malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB, financing the control of the diseases is a commanding theme at the TICAD meeting.
Health leaders from African countries and international organizations gathered at the conference, urging the G-8 leaders fulfill their pledges made at the 2007 Heiligendamm Summit for 60 billion U.S. dollars in new funding to fight major killing diseases in Africa.
Professor Brian Greenwood, laureate of the inaugural Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, said the most urgent problems in malaria control campaign in Africa are continuous investment and effective delivery of drugs and tools. The British doctor, who spent 15 years of field research in Africa, also praised Chinese scientists for their research on anti-malaria medicine, which he said has made great contribution in the fight against the major killer in Africa.
On rising food price that has triggered social unrest in some parts of Africa, delegates appealed to developed countries and international financial institutions to assist countries most affected in a continued effort to "strengthen productive and social safety nets, invest in agriculture, research and technology,support improved access to seeds, fertilizer and credit to small farmers and ensure medium- and long-term investment in a sustainable climate-proof agriculture."
Noting the current crisis caused by high food process presented both a challenge and an opportunity to Africa, the leaders stressed the need to size the opportunity as well as to meet the challenge, urging various national governments and international community to support farmers' efforts to take advantage of high food prices.
Africa accounts for only 4 percent of CO2 emissions, yet its populations, largely dependent on natural resources, are among the most vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather events. The bitter fact has thus made the environmental issue a key point for the approach to be discussed at TICAD IV.
The conference pledged in its final documents that more support would be made for climate change activities, including disaster prevention plans, early warning systems for droughts and floods, and Global map data for the entire Africa.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Japan unveiled at the conference a joint framework of more than 120 million US dollars to support African countries' efforts for addressing climate change and in particular in the area of adaptation.
The program, which will start in August 2008, is expected to prepare governments to manage climate change risks at the national and local levels and review existing poverty reduction strategies based on the expected climate change impacts on social and economic development.
Olav Kjorven, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of Bureau for Development Policy, told a press conference at TICAD IV that African delegates welcomed this program and called for stepping-up international support for the efforts to handle climate change.
The Japan-initiated TICAD process, in its fourth round since it was launched in 1993, seeks to mobilize knowledge and resources of the international community on African development.
At TICAD IV, the participants called for more vigorous impetus to attain the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and urged the Group of Eight (G-8) nations to honor their commitments already made for African development.
African countries reminded the conference of the profound connection between growth and such continent-wide issues as infectious diseases and other health challenges, education and human resource development, spiraling food and fuel prices and climate change and other environmental issues.
At the same time, delegates emphasized the need to avoid a "one-size-fits-all" approach, in recognition of the diversity of the continent.
The outcome from the meeting will be fed into the G-8 summit, which will be held at Japan's Hokkaido Toyako in July, to seek G-8's active support to the African development.
