Leaders in London for Financial Crisis Talks

(PANA)--Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his Ethiopian counterpart, Meles Zenawi, led a group of prominent African leaders to discussions on the future of Africa as the effects of the global financial crisis begin to affect the continent.

The two African leaders met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday for a pre-Group of 20 Summit, slated to discuss new strategies to help the world, including Africa, to weather the new financial storm that has been sweeping across western economies. Prime Minister Meles has been known to be the most eloquent of the African leaders in addressing the global financial crisis and asked the West to consider giving more resources to Africa to enable the continent to deal with the financial crisis.

The financial crisis has affected the growth prospects for most African economies with commodity prices tumbling down, tourism earnings sliding in Kenya and with the Tanzanian flower farmers suffering the biggest drop in the prices of flowers in ages. Britain is hosting the G-20 summit, bringing together the 20-elite economies of the world. The meeting would bring together the core teams including finance ministers and central bank governors from the various countries.

African Union’s Commission Chairperson, Jean Ping, is expected to speak on behalf of Africa at the April meeting of the G-20, which would be used to build consensus on the kind of financial and economic reforms needed to spur growth. Britain invited Africa to this year’s meeting as a participant for the first time since the elite club began holding its meetings, which is critical in shaping the future of the world economy, at which several high-profile macro and micro-economic decisions are made.

Speaking during an earlier forum of African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in February, Meles said African economies deserved the best treatment from the US, Britain and the entire European Union. ‘A bank in the developed world which is deemed too important to fail is getting more assistance than the whole continent of Africa,’ Meles told African leaders. ‘We have to insist that Africa is at least more important to the global economy as the individual bank in the developed countries,’ he reiterated.

Africa’s economy, which has been growing at an average rate of almost seven per cent, is expected to slow down by three percentage points this year as a result of the global financial crisis, which has sparked a global economic slowdown. African leaders are expected to make a case for increased access to financing and seek global support for an African economic stimulus plan to help revive some failing industries, which have been severely hit by the effects of the global slump.

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