Thread: African leaders want EU aid, not meddling

African leaders want EU aid, not meddling

Fri 17 Nov 2006 1:18 PM ET
By Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS, Nov 17 (Reuters) - African leaders told the European Union on Friday they needed aid but not interference in their reforms and policies.
"Stop interfering in the decision-making process of African states," Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told donors at a conference on state governance in Africa hosted by the European Commission in Brussels.

At the three-day conference attended by World Bank director Paul Wolfowitz, more than 15 African leaders and EU ministers, Museveni said his country risked an electricity shortage because donors had pressured it to stop building dams on the Nile.

"Do not use your wealth and power to try to create us in your image," said Botswana's President Festus Mogae, adding that governance "cannot be a one-way street, an instrument to be used by the strong against the weak."

The European Union calls itself the biggest aid donor in the world, with its figures showing it provided $43.3 billion in 2004, of which half went to Africa.

For 2008-2013, some 3 billion euros ($3.8 billion) will be allocated to reward countries for applying reforms that the EU calls good governance.

COMPETITION WITH CHINA

EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said: "I accept the criticisms, I agree that sometimes with the best intentions we are making mistakes."

But he rejected claims that new conditions were being imposed on aid.

At a summit last week, China raised its profile as a new world aid donor, offering Africa $5 billion in loans and credit and a pledge to double aid to Africa by 2009.

Michel said he felt no competition with China, but Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said such rivalry existed and that she welcomed it.

"China right now is aggressive, China has an economy that's hot, their demand for resources is just enormous. They have lots of human, technical, financial resources that they can now pour into the developing countries," she said on Wednesday, the first day of the conference.

South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu urged Africa to take its destiny in its own hands.

"We Africans should draw much inspiration from your ultimate triumph," he told the Europeans at the conference, referring to the continent's "phoenix-like" recovery after the Second World War.

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