Kufuor counts on German help at G8 summit

BERLIN: Ghana's President John Kufuor said on Thursday that he expected German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to be a good advocate for Africa at the G8 summit in Canada, where the continent will be high on the agenda.

Speaking at a press conference in Berlin after talks with Schroeder, Kufuor warned against seeing Africa as a continent of civil war and disaster and said that many countries' economies and human rights records there were improving.

Schroeder said development in Ghana was exemplary. He called for greater investement in the west African country. Leaders from the Group of Eight nations, which include Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States are to meet on June 26 and 27 in the isolated Canadian Rocky Mountain resort town of Kananaskis.

The leaders are due to discuss the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which offers good governance in return for aid. NEPAD, involving a group of the G8 and 15 African nations, hopes to serve as a framework to rescue Africa from poverty through debt relief and investment.

Kufuor was also scheduled to meet President Johannes Rau and Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Heidemarie Wiezcorek-Zeul and will travel to Hamburg on Friday. On May 8, Germany and Ghana struck a new debt repayment deal designed to support economic reform in the west African country.

Under the agreement, Germany is to wipe off 3.8 million euros (3.5 million dollars) of debt or 67 per cent of Ghana's outstanding liabilities.