Donor nations pledge $4.5b to help Sudan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-13 09:12

Donor countries pledged to give $4.5 billion over the next two years to cover Sudan's humanitarian and reconstruction needs, organizers of a 60-nation conference said Tuesday.

The United States was a major donor, pledging $1.7 billion.

"I think the main point is that we have a strong commitment to Sudan," Hilde Frafjord Johnson, Norway's development aid minister, said in closing the two-day conference.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan holds a press conference during the international conference on aid for Sudan, which was opened in Oslo, Norway, Monday, April 11, 2005. The April 11-12 conference brings together rich donor countries, international organizations and representatives of former enemies in the conflict who joined a transitional team to create a joint government.[AP]

Before the Oslo meeting, organizers had hoped for promises of $3.6 billion from the conference, most over the two-year period with the rest, about $1 billion, for immediate assistance.

A peace accord signed in January ended a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan, but violence continues in a separate conflict in the troubled western region of Darfur.

Johnson cautioned that collecting the exact amounts promised from donors could be difficult, but said she considered the pledges a guarantee that most basic needs would be met.

John Garang, a former southern rebel leader who is now a member of Sudan's new government, said everything — from roads to power — was needed in the south.

"Give me $10 billion, and I assure you, I will spend it," Garang said.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Monday that $2.6 billion was needed by 2007 to help Sudan, much of it as immediate cash to prevent 2 million people in the south from running out of food within weeks.

At Tuesday's session, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick announced that the United States had pledged $853 million for this year, and that the U.S. administration had asked lawmakers for almost $900 million more.

"This is a time of choosing for Sudan," said Zoellick. Either build peace, democracy and economic recovery or "Sudan could slip back into the depths" of conflict, he said.

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