Three years after the end of the G8 summit in Gleneagles in Britain, African countries are still complaining of delays disbursing promised aid by the world's richest countries and are now calling for new safeguards at the forthcoming meeting slated for July 7 to 9 in Japan.
On Tuesday, the African Union (AU) summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, called on the word's eight industrialized nations to "keep their promises to support African development" in a statement that was also signed by the United Nations and other international organizations.
"African leaders expect the G8 countries to keep their promises as the credibility of international commitments is at stake here," AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping told reporters at the end of the Egypt summit.
Somalians await a food delivery by the World Food Programme (WFP) at Marka, 100 km south of Mogadishu, in 2007. Three years after the end of the G8 summit in Gleneagles in Britain, African countries are still complaining of delays disbursing promised aid by the world's richest countries and are now calling for new safeguards at the forthcoming meeting slated for July 7 to 9 in Japan.(Xinhua/AFP File Photo)
In 2005 at Gleneagles, the G8 countries, which include the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia, pledged to double aid to Africa by 2010.
Since then, several revisions have seen this figure reduced to about 21.8 billion dollars, and, according to the UN and the AU, only a quarter of the initially promised sum has been paid to date.
Meanwhile, there are several voices that have emerged to demand new safeguards before the next G8 summit, which will be attended by representatives from eight African countries: Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
"The first thing one would expect from the next G8 summit is the fulfillment of commitments and promises that have already been made," El-Hadj Amadou Sall, spokesman for the Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, was quoted as saying in a recent interview.
