Africa holds rich world to account as Bono visits

ABUJA - Rock star Bono met Chancellor Gordon Brown at a run-down Nigerian primary school on Monday, as Africa moved to hold the rich world to account over promises to fund a "Marshall Plan" for the continent.

Some ceilings at Ido Sarki School, on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital, had collapsed and about 150 children crowded onto benches in one classroom, illustrating the scale of the task required for the poorest continent to deliver basic education to all within nine years.

"Education for every child is the most cost-effective investment the world could ever make," Brown said, adding that every extra year of schooling also had measurable impact on a country's health and prosperity.

African finance ministers invited Brown and Bono to a conference in Abuja where they followed up on last year's meeting of the Group of Eight rich nations which promised to double aid to Africa by 2010.

Development campaigners say the rich world is already falling behind on promises to fund a development plan on the scale of the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after the Second World War.

The plan for Africa is to get on track to meet globally agreed targets for wealth, health and education, known as Millennium Development Goals, by 2015.

Some donors have complained Africa lacks detailed, costed strategies that would encourage them to hand over the money more quickly. At least 15 African countries responded on Monday by agreeing to draw up fully costed, 10-year education recovery plans by September.

Brown said Russian President Vladimir Putin had already agreed to put education on the agenda at the next Group of Eight meeting in Russia in July.

United Nations economist Jeffrey Sachs told ministers to forget IMF-imposed spending controls and work on more ambitious plans that would deliver the targets, which include halving poverty and cutting child mortality by two-thirds.

"The days when the IMF said 'Freeze public sector spending' are over," Sachs told the conference.

"It cannot be business as usual, because business as usual will not bring us to the Millennium Development Goals. Business as usual will take us even farther than we are today."

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, estimates that it needs US$5 billion to US$7 billion extra every year to meet the goals. It has obtained US$1 billion in the form of funds released by a historic debt write-off by rich creditor nations last year.

Spending hikes in education, health and infrastructure are needed all at the same time because the goals are interlinked, Sachs said.

If a child has to walk several miles to fetch water for her family every day, she cannot attend school. A water borehole in her village might also protect her from water-borne diseases.

Brown said he was optimistic about African development, but the scale of the task was huge.

"Over the last two decades, the number of men and women living in poverty in Africa has tragically doubled. Africa's share in global trade has halved," he told the conference.

- REUTERS