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Ethiopia’s PM says pleased by G-20 summit outcomes

April 3,2009 (ADDIS ABABA) — Chairman of New partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi who attended the G-20 summit representing the African continent on Friday said that the outcomes of London summit are satisfactory.

“We (Africa) have brought two major Agendas to the summit, for a strong measure to be taken against the global financial down turn to recover and also a 50 Billion additional aid for Africa to be granted,” Meles Zenawi said adding “the summit has more or less responded well to these African concerns raised during the summit.”

Leaders from the world’s most powerful nations, meeting in London on April 2, agreed to triple the money the IMF can lend to rescue crisis-stricken nations, to $750 billion. The agency will also get another $250 billion in Special Drawing Rights, an overdraft facility for its 185 members. Also, the World Bank and other lenders to poor nations will receive another $100 billion, and a further $250 billion will be devoted to trade finance, the G-20 decided.

Invited by the host country, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was in London two weeks ago to be at a pre-G20 meeting.

According to the premier, the final out comes of the G-20 summit, which he said he is pleased by, are the results of the pre-summit consultations made with senior African officials, organizers of the summit including UK prime minister Gordon Grown and also are the results of the G-20 summit itself which broadly heard to African concerns as a top agenda.

Meles believes that the G-20 meeting is relatively a better one among summits he had in the past in terms of responsible listening to Africa’s outcries.

G-20 winded up its summit on Thursday by promising a 50 Billion aid to Africa, which is expected to be funneled as of the coming November.

Meles is the only African leader apart from South Africa’s president Kgalema Motlanthe to attend the G-20 summit.

During the summit the IGAD chairman said that it is indeed true that the one continent that has contributed virtually nothing to the economic downward spiral is already paying a heavy price.

According to trade experts, the global crisis have negatively affected Africa’s export demand, investment flows, commodity prices, remittances, exchange rates as well as employment.

Ahead of the summit he also warned power leaders that, failure of rich countries to make Africa as center of their attention will return devastating consequence, as he said “collapse to some African countries”.

“Some countries could go ‘under’ if they are not helped through the global crises, threatening “total chaos and violence”.

“They should care about Africa because it is their interests”
Any stimulus money spent in developed countries is going to have less global impact than if the same amount of money were to be spent in Africa” He underscored.

“Some countries could go under and that would mean total chaos and violence, in the end, the cost of violence is going to be much higher than the cost of supporting Africa,” he said. “We are talking about the range of money that is being spent on the mid-sized banks. Consider Africa as one of those banks.”

The G-20 is a forum that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging market countries on key issues related to global economic stability. It is made up of 19 of the world’s largest national economies, plus the European Union (EU).

The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministry and Central Bank Governors was established in 1999 to bring together systemically important industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy.

(ST)

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