From Agence France Presse Afrcan leaders pledge to tackle poverty 'head on' LIBREVILLE, Jan 19 (AFP)-African leaders closed a summit here Wednesday by declaring their determination to tackle poverty"head on" in the world's poorest continent. The Libreville Declaration issued at the end of the two-day meeting of about 20 African heads of state and government said the participants recognised "that poverty reduction is a challenge that they must take up themselves." "As a result, they express their determination to attack it head on with the support of their development partners," the statement added The summit was held in the Gabonese capital under the aegis of the IMF, with top staff of the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank participati ng. The text praised the IMF's new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, which it said should lead to a "new approach to cooperation between beneficiary countries, multilateral institutions and other lenders." The leaders vowed to "redouble efforts to promote strong and lasting growth and to reduce poverty, notably to eliminating unproductive spending and improving education, health, social services and basic infrastructure." They set the goal of reducing African poverty by half by 2015 and planned to set up a committee to monitor implementation of the summit's recommendations. "Africa is a continent endowed with a great untapped potential, and the goal at the threshold of the new millenium is to fully realise this potential and to transform it into sustained and comprehensive development," the declaration said. The heads of state and government renew their solemn appeal to the internationa l community for the cancellation of African debt. the summiteers hailed the Group of Eight industrialised countries for deciding at their summit in Cologne, Germany, last June to slash 70 billion dollars off the more than 200 billion dollars in debt of the world's poorest nations. The declaration added that Africa wanted its "development partners to substantially reduce the time needed for access to debt relief." END ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------