Sudan Donor Conference Reaches $2.6 Billion Aid Goal
SLO (Reuters) - Donors promised at least $2.6 billion Tuesday to help southern Sudan recover after Africa's longest civil war but the United States said the aid hinged on ending atrocities in Darfur.
"Preliminary calculations show that we have been able to cover the shortfall of $2.6 billion set by the parties," Norwegian Development Minister Hilde Frafjord Johnson said at the opening session of the second day of the two-day talks.
"I think that's worth an applause already," she said, triggering clapping around the conference hall in an Oslo hotel attended by 60 nations.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told the conference Washington aimed to give $1-$2 billion but that Sudan needed to bolster the January North-South peace deal ending a 21-year war and to end attacks in the western region of Darfur.
"There is a chance to save this country," he said.
"This is a time for choosing for Sudan," he said, saying the country could take an upward spiral toward peace and development or a downwards spiral in which Sudan could "slip back into the depths."
Among major pledges Monday, the European Commission promised about $765 million, Britain $545 million, Norway $250 million and the Netherlands $220 million, organizers said.
A report by the United Nations and World Bank, backed by the Khartoum government and the ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement, said Sudan needed $2.6 billion in aid from July 2005 to the end of 2007 to build everything from schools to roads.
Some of the cash was promised for immediate humanitarian needs or for longer-term projects and would not be part of the $2.6 billion total.
More than 2 million people were killed and 4 million displaced by the war that pitted the mainly animist and Christian south against the Arab north in a conflict complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.
- Database Search
- Unpaid Debt A comprehensive overview of the role of the Lundin Consortium in the oil war. ECOS calls upon the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate whether, as a matter of international law, Lundin, OMV and Petronas 'were complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by others during the period 1997-2003.’ In response, the Swedish Public Prosecutor for International crimes opened a criminal investigation into ‘links between Sweden and the reported crimes’.
- In Depth For more specific information about the Lundin court case please visit the Unpaid Debt dossier.
