Uganda, Zambia set out Africa's priorities to G8

LONDON, June 5 (Reuters) Africa needs targeted aid in order to trade and practical help on energy generation and infrastructure, the presidents of Uganda and Zambia said today ahead of a summit of world leaders later this week.

Large influxes of foreign cash that are not specifically targeted can unbalance African economies by artificially bolstering local currencies and undermining efforts to export, they said.

''Too much aid is not good for our economies,'' Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told an African business forum in London, aimed at stimulating investment in the continent.

''This aid in my view should be targeted: aid for trade, aid in order to trade,'' he said, speaking a day before leaders of the Group of Eight top industrial countries meet in Germany.

Alleviating poverty in Africa and tackling climate change are top of the agenda at the three-day summit.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said African nations were not interested in aid ''just for the sake of it''.

''We want to be helped so that we can help ourselves,'' he told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

Mwanawasa said he wanted Western companies to exploit Zambia's raw materials but they should do this by setting up local factories to produce value-added goods rather than simply extracting minerals.

Mwanawasa, addressing the gathering of business leaders and officials, also urged the G8 to live up to their aid pledges made at their meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005.

World leaders at Gleneagles agreed a 50 billion dollars increase in aid per year by 2010, half of which would go to Africa. They also agreed 100 per cent debt cancellation.

''The long promised accelerated aid from the rich countries has fallen far short of the promises,'' he said.

He also stressed the need for an agreement on the stalled Doha round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.

''I wish to ask the G8 to adopt the seriousness we saw over debt relief in relation to the trade negotiations,'' he said.

Museveni urged the G8 to target assistance on energy generation and transport infrastructure. The East African nation suffers crippling electricity shortages that deter investors.

''Where we need assistance now, or at least no obstruction, is on cheap electricity hydro, geothermal and nuclear power,'' he said, adding that Uganda could not avoid nuclear energy given its power shortages.

Uganda and other parts of East Africa urgently needed railway infrastructure, he added.

Museveni also cautioned G8 leaders against political interference in Africa, saying: ''Some of the G8 countries seem to think they should have a supervising role over Africa.'' Using an analogy of an anaemic patient, he said Africa did not need continuous blood transfusions.

''I'd recommend we stimulate the bone marrow of Africa so we can generate our own red and white blood cells,'' he said.

Reuters ABM DB2144