UN advisor says Africa must pin down rich on pledges

Breaking Africa's poverty cycle will require rich nations to fulfil aid pledges and the continent to boost investment in food production and fighting killer diseases, a leading economist said today.

African leaders must put pressure on the wealthy countries meeting at the Group of Eight summit this week to live up to their promises of helping to curb the suffering of millions of Africans, Jeffrey Sachs told Reuters in an interview.

"If we don't have a breakthrough, there is going to be a lot of unnecessary suffering in Africa," said Sachs, a special adviser to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and one of the world's best-known economists.

Sachs said he wanted African leaders to raise investment in food production and fighting diseases to meet the UN's Millennium Development Goals -- such as halving poverty and providing water and sanitation by 2015.

"It is possible to meet the goals but not on the basis of a 'business as usual' course of action. There would have to be a major scale-up of investment activities ... growing more food and fighting disease, building infrastructure needed for rural and urban development," Sachs said.

"Sceptics are correct in saying they (Millennium Development Goals) cannot be met under the current trajectory where aid pledges are not fulfilled," he said.

"They (rich countries) have been talking about increased aid to Africa, they have talked about providing 0.7 per cent of their gross national product as development assistance for many years but have never quite delivered," Sachs said.

He waded into the United States, saying its failure to meet its aid obligations was one of the reasons for a financing gap in helping to lift Africa from poverty.

He said the United States delighted in saying it was giving food aid to Africa, but the continent did not need that. Instead, helping African farmers grow their own food and to be self-sufficient would produce better long-term results, he said.

Washington spent above 0.7 per cent of its GNP on the Iraqi war while it was ready to offer only a fraction of that to help Africa, and that was not acceptable, Sachs said.

He told African leaders to raise their voice in unison at the G8 summit: "Tell them to follow through what they promised. Tell them it is not enough to offer half a loaf, like debt relief to some countries, its got to be on a larger scale. The pressure has to continue on all the rich countries.

"The offer by the G8 can't be charity, it should be investment," he added.

Many critics of aid -- including Sachs -- say that the bulk of it never goes directly to development of the poor and ends up going on debt relief, emergency aid, or on housing and car benefits for expensive Western experts.

Asked how aid could be made more efficient, Sachs said it was up to donor countries to demand stricter control of their taxpayers' money and negotiate tougher oversight of the contractual terms enjoyed by expatriate consultants.

- REUTERS