“Development ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) undertook in Berlin on Tuesday to set up micro-credit facilities for African nations with the help of the World Bank and increase funds for the fight against AIDS. German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said giving poor Africans access to credit would be at the top of the agenda when leaders of the G8 wealthiest nations meet in Germany in June. ‘The G8 will do everything it can to institute micro-financing to which the poorest in Africa can have access, in particular women,’ Wieczorek-Zeul said at the end of a two-day meeting in Berlin held to prepare for the summit. She said officials from the G8 and Africa met with representatives of the African Development Bank, which will be asked to help institute the system along with the World Bank to stimulate job creation and economic growth in the world's poorest continent. …” [Deutsche Welle (Germany)/Factiva]


AFP writes that “… Wieczorek-Zeul said G8 leaders will also announce more funding for the fight against AIDS, which afflicts Africa more than any other continent, and to increase investment in the region when they meet in Heiligendamm from June 6-8. ‘We have to replenish the Global Fund to Fight Aids. It is important that the G8 makes a contribution.’ She put no figure on new G8 pledges for the fund, which was established in 2001. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva] The Financial Times reports that the G8 further said Tuesday “The increasing volumes of development aid coming from powerful emerging economies such as China and India should meet higher governance and transparency standards. China already provides aid amounting to $2 billion a year, a higher figure than Belgium, Switzerland or Australia. India's estimated total of up to $1 billion a year already exceeds that of Finland and Ireland, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development club of industrial states.


Officials at yesterday's talks said the delegates from China and India were keen to talk to the G8 on aid issues but stressed their right to set their own priorities. … G8 development ministers said a ‘global partnership’ with emerging economies was needed when setting governance benchmarks for potential recipients. … The G8 ministers also urged emerging economies to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a voluntary framework whereby oil and gas-producing countries publish data on industry revenues and expenditures.” [The Financial Times (UK)] Reuters further notes that at a news conference on Tuesday “Germany's development minister said a tax could be levied on jet fuel and the proceeds spent on helping developing countries offset the effects of climate change. The G8 ministers [also] stressed in the meeting the need to limit deforestation in developing countries. But the US has made it clear it does not like the idea of financing the development of these countries' forestry. The informal G8 development meeting, which closed on Tuesday, included for the first time delegates from developing nations Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.