Africa needs practical help, not new promises: UN advisor

Africa needs practical help instead of new promises to battle poverty and pandemic diseases to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before 2015, a UN advisor said here Tuesday.

Jeffrey Sachs, a special advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told a news conference here that Africa needs to overcome three obstacles -- major killer diseases, dilapidated agricultural infrastructure and extreme isolation -- before realizing the MDGs.

He pointed out Africa still has no ability to account for its own plight, so the international community must put in enough resources to help Africa establish infrastructure and create basic conditions for development.

Sachs, a top economist, urged donor countries to keep their commitments to increasing financial aid to poor countries.

Rich nations promised last year to make Africa a priority and double the amount of aid to the continent to 50 billion U.S. dollars by 2010.

Sachs proposed carrying out a green revolution on the African continent to guarantee food security, beef up treatment of malaria, AIDS and other killer diseases, and attract more foreign investment in building roads, hospitals and schools.

He said funding is also needed to be channeled to rural areas to ensure it reaches the people most badly in need.

Meanwhile, the adviser urged African countries to cease war and conflicts, combat government corruption and create necessary conditions to achieve the MDGs.

He said the United Nations had chosen 10 African villages to be MDGs demonstration villages, including a Senegalese village 200 km north of the capital Dakar, to help women reduce labor intensity and lead villagers to promote production.

World leaders endorsed in 2000 the MDGs which target eradication of poverty, disease, hunger, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women as the key areas to sustaining social and economic progress in all countries.

Source: Xinhua