African leaders vowed on Tuesday to redouble their efforts in eradicating poverty and promoting socio-economic growth in a bid to achieve UN-designed development goals within the deadline.

Leaders and senior officials, who gathered in the Libyan port city Sirte for the fifth African Union summit, pledged to fulfill their commitments to the UN Millennium Development Goals agreed by all UN member states in 2000, which are aimed at halving the 1 billion people living with extreme poverty and hunger in the world, reversing the spread of AIDS and malaria and providing basic education by 2015.

The final declaration reached at the end of the two-day summit acknowledged that although some progress had been made in some African countries, more needed to be done in order to attain to the goals within the deadline.

According to a UN report released in June, Africa fell behind the schedule of the goals with the number of people living on less than 1 dollar a day in sub-Saharan Africa rising by 86 million from 1990 to 313 million in 2001.

About 33 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa experience chronic hunger.

In order to speed up development, African leaders vowed to beef up efforts to fight a face-to-face battle against poverty by creating more jobs, promoting rural economy and agriculture as well as boosting the private sector.

The leaders were also eager to attract foreign investment to insert more energy into the continent's economic growth, pledging to promote peace and security and ensure good governance for the creation of an investment-friendly environment.

With roughly 830 million people, or 13 percent of the world total population, Africa accounts for just 1 percent of global foreign direct investment, 1 percent of global gross domestic product and 2 percent of world trade.

The final declaration especially highlighted the importance to stem conflicts and achieve peace on the continent for reaching the UN development goals, envisioning a conflict-free Africa by 2010.

"African leaders resolved to address conflict and political instability on the continent, with the aim of achieving a conflict- free Africa by 2010 by prioritizing and allocating more resources to conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction," said the declaration.

In addition, it called for stepped-up efforts in promoting gender equality and combating AIDS, Malaria and other diseases that plagued the continent while urging the international community to make good on their promises on aid and debt relief.

The UN is scheduled to hold a general assembly in September, which is to review the progress on the development goals.

Addressing the AU summit on Monday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called upon Africa to make "true breakthroughs" in order to fulfill the UN-sponsored development goals on time.

Despite being rich in natural resources, Africa has been under the vile spell of poverty. It is home to 35 of the world's 48 poorest countries, and more than 40 percent of the sub-Saharan population lives on the international poverty threshold.

Meanwhile, the continent remains vulnerable to diseases including AIDS that has infected some 3 million in sub-Sahara regions in 2004.

Source: Xinhua