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Thursday, June 6, 2002 - Web posted at 7:00:57 am GMT

By Jan Hennop

DURBAN, South Africa, June 6 (AFP) - A three-day meeting on Africa's rescue plan enters its second day Thursday with delegates from around the world looking at responses to AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and the inauguration of high-speed fiber-optic cables.

South African President Thabo Mbeki is due to launch the 639-million-dollar undersea cable system, connecting Africa with Europe and Asia. The cables, snaking up Africa's Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts, will see a quantum leap in Africa's connections to overseas telephone lines and the Internet.

The private and public sector will join in looking at ways of addressing diseases devastating the continent at the Africa meeting of the Swiss-based World Economic Forum (WEF) in the South African city of Durban attended by eight African presidents and some 700 delegates from 47 countries, 26 of them African.

It is evaluating business support for the New Partnership on Africa's Development (NEPAD) ahead of a G8 summit of highly developed nations on June 26-27 in Kananaskis, Canada.

Mbeki and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria called Wednesday on business leaders to back NEPAD, both stressing that it was a plan "designed by Africans for Africans".

"NEPAD is a necessity. We have no alternative. This is a plan designed by us (Africans), imposed by us, and if it fails, we have nobody else to blame but ourselves," Obasanjo told the delegates at the opening plenary.

Adopted by African heads of state in Abuja last October, NEPAD aims to rework the relationship between Africa and the developed world from one of beggar-philanthropist to equal partners with a common goal -- developing the continent not as an act of charity but for the sake of global security and prosperity.

It envisages annual investment of some 64 billion dollars (68 billion euros) and an annual gross domestic product growth rate target of more than seven percent for the next 15 years. It also aims to reduce the number of Africans living in extreme poverty by half by 2015.

G8 leaders have come out in support of NEPAD, notably Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, the current G8 chairman, who made a five-country tour of Africa in April and pronounced that he was impressed by it.

Apart from Mbeki and Obasanjo, presidents Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia attended Wednesday's sessions, with Botswana's Festus Mogae expected to join on Thursday. - Nampa-AFP

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