Global Policy Forum

By Christopher Adams

The world's poorest countries, including several poverty-stricken African states, are to receive an extra $1bn (£685m) in debt relief, after Britain struck a deal with the US and Japan yesterday.

The deal, reached on the eve of a debate on Africa at the G8 summit today, was hailed by aid agencies as a breakthrough. It means that nearly a dozen African countries, which were struggling to service crippling debts after a sharp fall in world commodity prices, will be better off.

Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, who with Canada and Germany has lobbied hard in recent weeks to turn around US, Japanese and French doubts about providing extra help, welcomed the additional relief as a "significant step forward" and said he hoped to build on this in the G8 plan for Africa.

"The recent decline in commodity prices and the slowdown in the world economy has harmed the poorest countries," said Mr Blair. The step is a boost for the prime minister, who voiced hopes at the UK Labour party conference last year that he would help heal the "scar" of African poverty on the world's conscience.

Aid agencies said more substantial sums of debt relief were needed. "It's progress, but we want to see enough debt relief to achieve the 2015 millennium development goal of halving poverty. Low-income countries in Africa need 100 per cent debt cancellation in order to move towards halving poverty," said Henry Northover of Cafod, the Catholic development aid agency.

Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, a process launched at the G8 summit in Cologne three years ago, the world's richest economies have promised $100bn of debt relief for the poorest nations. But non-governmental organisations argue that at least 10 of the 22 countries involved are still going to be paying more on debt servicing than on primary healthcare or education. The African nations are calling for a reduction in debt servicing of 5-10 per cent of government revenues.

Meanwhile, plans to counter terrorist threats to air travel and cargo shipping were unveiled at the summit as G8 leaders pledged to step up the fight against international terrorism.

Leaders of the US, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Russia jointly promised co-ordinated action to make air travel safer and the transport of goods more secure.

Included in the plan are proposals to reinforce flight deck doors on all G8 passenger aircraft by April 2003 and new passport controls. Minimum standards for travel documents will be in place by October this year and more data on lost or stolen passports will be shared.

The campaign against terror topped yesterday's formal summit agenda. The heads of state discussed a range of issues including the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, the India-Pakistan conflict and the international drugs trade.

Participants were intent on showing a united front against terrorism at the first G8 meeting since the September 11 attacks on the US. Mr Blair said: "This is not over. We have to ensure that at every single level we are carrying this fight forward."

Other measures included improving the safety of container traffic and a commitment to draw up common standards for electronic customs reporting.

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