Military

DATE=5/28/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=AFRICA SUMMIT (L-O)

NUMBER=2-303730

BYLINE=NICO COLOMBANT

DATELINE=ABIDJAN

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: African leaders are meeting in Nigeria to discuss ways to boost peacekeeping capabilities and increase regional economic development. V-O-A's Nico Colombant reports from our West Africa bureau in Abidjan.

TEXT: Talks in Abuja focused on assessing what economic advances Africa has made since African leaders adopted the New Partnership for Africa's Development two-years ago.

Next week, the G-8 nations are to meet in France, and G-8 leaders have indicated they will increase aid and debt relief if NEPAD, as the African-led initiative is known, delivers on promises of economic and political reform. Officials from African nations have been invited to attend the G-8 summit, taking place in Evian, France.

William Lyakurwa, the director of the Nairobi-based African Economic Research Consortium, says it is important for African leaders, when they go to Evian, to be seen as united in their development efforts.

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At the G-8 meeting, it would be useful for African governments to present a common voice in terms of their concerted efforts at improving governance, attacking issues of poverty and the pandemic of H-I-V / AIDS which are central concerns and also to get the voice from the G-8 as to what extent the G-8 is prepared to assist African governments to move forward.

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Mr. Lyakurwa says until 10-years ago African economies were inward looking, and that they still lack the necessary infrastructure to effectively compete on the global market. He also says a stable democratic environment is needed to earn the trust of trading partners.

Leaders from West Africa organized a separate meeting in Abuja to discuss regional peacekeeping efforts in Ivory Coast, where French soldiers as well as a West African force and a U-N mission are helping put an end to eight months of civil war. The conflict has hurt the Ivory Coast economy, as well as those of many land-locked neighboring countries that use Ivorian ports as points of transit.

/// OPT TO END /// The Economic Community of West African states was slow to react to the Ivorian civil war, which broke out in September, needing several months before being able to send a small peacekeeping force. ECOWAS has a peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast with more than one-thousand soldiers from five countries, Senegal, Benin, Togo, Niger, and Ghana.

ECOWAS officials say they would like to establish a rapid-reaction force that would be able to send hundreds of troops to a conflict area in a matter of weeks. (SIGNED)

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