Blair urges more action on G8 poverty promises

LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that the Group of Eight had failed to make progress on some of the commitments it made at a summit last year to tackle global poverty.

Writing in the Independent newspaper, Blair said the problems of poverty and climate change could not be solved ''overnight'', but urged more action, particularly on trade.

''These are long-term problems and the solutions will be long-term too,'' he wrote in a joint article with his Finance Minister Gordon Brown and Development Minister Hilary Benn.

''But millions who campaigned in the run-up to the G8 summit (in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July 2005) have every right to expect immediate action to start to put things right.'' Blair singled out trade as the ''one key element of the 2005 agenda where we have failed to make the progress we hoped'' and urged World Trade Organisation members to have the ''courage and imagination to remove obstacles'' to a deal.

WTO members are struggling to strike a deal on basic formulas for cutting farm subsidies and reducing agricultural and manufacturing tariffs after more than four years of talks.

GELDOF AND ANNAN In a speech later on Monday, Blair will say he has enlisted rock star Bob Geldof and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to track how G8 industrialised nations live up to their aid promises to Africa.

Blair will announce he is setting up an independent Africa Progress Panel, to be chaired by Annan and to include Geldof, organiser of a series of Live 8 concerts last year, and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, to evaluate progress.

Millions attended rock concerts around the world to press for action by the G8, which promised an extra 50 billion dollars a year in total aid for all developing countries by 2010, including an expected 25 billion dollars for Africa.

Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane, who set up the African Monitor watchdog which gets local communities to track the progress of aid pledges, told BBC radio the rhetoric was strong, but was not always matched by delivery.

''People are good at talking,'' he said. ''What we are seeking to do is to ensure that there is translation from talk to action -- that the actual cash is delivered.'' REUTERS SHR ND1534