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<font size="1">Listers</font></div>
<div id="box"><div id="article-header"><div id="main-article-info"><h1><font size="1">Leaders are expected to agree on a
"nine-pillar" plan tomorrow that is intended to become a guide to
strengthening cooperation between developed and emerging economies. <br></font></h1><h1><font size="1">The
nine pillars are infrastructure building, trade promotion, human
resources development, private investment, job creation, domestic
resources mobilisation, growth with resilience efforts, financial
inclusion and knowledge sharing.G20: free-trade area for Africa proposed by UK and South Africa.</font></h1>
<p id="stand-first" class="stand-first-alone"><font size="4">Anti-poverty strategy
co-sponsored by Jacob Zuma and former Labour minister Baroness Vadera
aims to bring 26 African countries together in a trading bloc</font></p>
</div><br></div><div id="content"><a class="contributor" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/patrickwintour">Patrick Wintour</a> and <a class="contributor" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/phillipinman">Phillip Inman</a> in Seoul<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">, guardian.co.uk</a>,
Thursday 11 November 2010 15.23 GMT<ul class="article-attributes"><li class="publication"><br></li><div id="article-wrapper">
<img src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/11/11/1289488845340/Baroness-Shriti-Vadera-006.jpg" alt="Baroness (Shriti) Vadera" height="276" width="460">
Baroness Vadera, the former Labour minister, now a
G20 adviser and the co-sponsor of the Africa free trade area
initiative. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
<p>A free trade area for Africa, to help the impoverished continent
match the spectacular growth of Far East economies, emerged as a
distinctive British initiative at the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/g20" title="More from guardian.co.uk on G20">G20</a> summit today.</p><p>The
anti-poverty strategy, which is partly the brainchild of former Labour
minister turned G20 adviser Baroness Vadera, has been developed with
Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa.</p><p>David Cameron, speaking
at a business summit in Seoul today, said: "We should explain that free
trade is good for the poorest parts of our world as well, and one thing
the British have been very active in trying to insert into this G20 is a
free-trade area for Africa.</p><p>"Africa should be a growing part of
the world economy: we should be lifting more people out of poverty in
Africa. But we will not do it with all the trade barriers that exist
between African countries."</p><p>There are currently three distinct
free trade areas within Africa, but a meeting in January of the
continent's major powers is designed to create a single free trade
entity spanning 26 countries.</p><p>However, anti-poverty campaigners
warned that a new approach focused on growth must not be used as an
excuse to wriggle out of aid promises. "That's got to be the worry –
that there's the appeal of the new, and that promises that are quite
painful to deliver in the current climate are gone," said Adrian Lovett,
global campaign director for Save the Children.</p><p>Save the Children
said that of $25bn in aid promised by the G8 countries in 2005, only
$12bn has been delivered, and warned that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/development" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Development">development</a> progress could be derailed by the economic crisis.</p><p>
Zuma,
who is attending the G20 meeting, said the summit is also expected to
launch major investments in infrastructure and skills development in
developing countries, to help rebalance the world economy by creating
new centres of demand outside the flagging economies of North America
and Europe.</p><p>A battle earlier in the year – in part waged by
Vadera, who was helped into her current role by her former boss, Gordon
Brown – has ensured that the issue of international development is now
appearing on the G20's agenda, having previously been seen exclusively
as the preserve of the G8.</p><p>Leaders are expected to agree on a
"nine-pillar" plan tomorrow that is intended to become a guide to
strengthening cooperation between developed and emerging economies. The
nine pillars are infrastructure building, trade promotion, human
resources development, private investment, job creation, domestic
resources mobilisation, growth with resilience efforts, financial
inclusion and knowledge sharing.</p><p>Vadera, a former investment
banker who was ennobled by Brown, points out that South Korea is one of
only two countries that has transformed itself from a low income country
to a high-income country in just one generation. She argues that it
achieved this not by following the traditional prescriptions of the
World Bank or the IMF, but by using <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/internationaltrade" title="More from guardian.co.uk on International trade">international trade</a> as an essential component of its development policy.</p>
<p>She
argues that it is not enough to rely on aid over the long term;
instead, greater reliance on domestic resources is critical to build a
more resilient economy and implement a home-grown development agenda.</p><br></div></ul><div id="dialogue"><div class="toolbox-popup" id="history-link-box" style="width: 460px;"><div class="send-inner"><div class="section">
<h1>G20: free-trade area for Africa proposed by UK and South Africa</h1>
This article was published on
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">guardian.co.uk</a>
at 15.23 GMT on Thursday 11 November 2010.
A version appeared in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian">the Guardian</a>
on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/nov/12">Friday 12 November 2010</a>.
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