Posted on 06/03/2005 1:11:22 PM PDT by nypokerface
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - The United States is willing to look for ways to fund a "Marshall Plan" for Africa even if it opposes Britain's plan for a new lending facility, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
Mbeki, fresh from meeting President Bush in Washington this week, told the World Economic Forum (WEF) Africa summit in Cape Town the U.S. leader was willing to help Africa, and Bush hoped commitments would be made at the G8 summit.
"The U.S. says, we don't agree on the IFF (British-proposed International Financial Facility), but what we agree to is to generate funds using whatever mechanisms at its disposal," Mbeki told African business and political leaders at the close of their three-day summit.
"What President Bush has said is, give me the target (funding), but leave to me the matter of what method I will use to produce this outcome ... He (Bush) wasn't talking about it being too much money," Mbeki said.
Mbeki said he did not expect resistance to the idea to fund the recovery of Africa, close to half of whose nearly 700 million sub-Saharan population live below a $1 a day, but the debate was likely to center around ways to pay for the effort.
The plan devised by the British government's Africa Commission seeks an extra $25 billion a year in aid until 2010 to help end widespread poverty and disease in Africa.
A central plank of the plan -- the IFF which would borrow against future aid pledges -- has drawn U.S. opposition.
SHOW OF SUPPORT
The Africa summit has said it hopes to use the British plan to lobby the G8 group of industrialized states to give more aid to Africa at the G8 meeting in Gleneagles Scotland next month. Mbeki said Africa would place funding for peace and security on the Gleneagles agenda.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has staked his reputation on helping the world's poorest continent during Britain's presidency of the G8 and the European Union this year, but his proposals have been dogged by discord among G8 nations on debt reduction and aid spending.
Mbeki said a plan to impose an international tax on jet fuel - an idea floated by French President Jacques Chirac - was yet another example that the G8 was keen to help Africa.
"Chirac is talking about taxes on jet fuel, the U.S. is talking of using its budget processes. I don't expect there will be conflict at Gleneagles over the need to help Africa," he said.
Mbeki backed the British blueprint, saying it responded to pledges already made by the G8 to Africa's New Partnership For Africa's Development (NEPAD), a home-grown rescue-plan, in 2002.
He said NEPAD's peer review mechanism -- where evaluators assess a country's governance record in the hope that positive ratings could lure foreign lending and investment -- would help guarantee that aid money is not misused.
The first reports under the voluntary scrutiny process, on Ghana and Rwanda, were expected to be ready this month, he said.
Niall FitzGerald, chairman of Reuters and co-chair of the WEF summit, told reporters peer review was central to Africa's future and that countries that ignored the review did so at their own cost.
"Those countries which have not yet signed up for that probably will be at the end of the line when it comes to getting the benefits of the projects to revitalise Africa," he said.
You're joking; right?
Recovery from what? 80 years of inter-tribal wars?
Recovery to what? The stone age?
To be totally fair, we have at least a dozen domestic idiot politicians I can think of right off the bat who can do as badly; or worse. Parasites, who set their own wages, and are taxpayers in name only.
With the track record in Africa, this sounds like a perfect idea.
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