UNITED NATIONS — African leaders warned Monday that a lingering global financial crisis coupled with the collapse of talks on a world-trade agreement could significantly harm the U.N. campaign to improve life for hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest.
But Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who heads the 53-nation African Union, said that if rich nations really care, they will help Africa despite the financial meltdown on Wall Street.
The financial storm clouds hovered over a high-level meeting on Africa’s development needs ahead of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual ministerial session, which opens today. The grim international economic outlook is certain to be a hot issue for the nearly 120 world leaders and dozens of ministers attending the global meeting.
At the start of Monday’s meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged the world’s rich nations to spend $72 billion a year to help Africa achieve U.N. goals to fight poverty, improve health and ensure universal primary education.
Ban said the price tag is daunting but “it is affordable,” pointing to the estimated $267 billion that the world’s richest nations spent last year just on agricultural subsidies.
“In this context, the cost of solving the food crisis, addressing global warming and pulling millions out of extreme poverty in Africa looks like good value,” he said.
A new report from the secretary-general said not a single African country is likely to achieve all the U.N. Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015.
Those attending Monday’s high-level meeting later adopted a declaration reaffirming their commitment to addressing Africa’s development needs and calling for the fulfillment of all official development assistance-related commitments.
Kikwete warned that “if the (Wall Street) crisis is to continue, it will certainly have serious, serious implications” in the region.
But he was hopeful that the U.S. financial turmoil would be short-lived.
