Africa has urged the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries to deliver billions of dollars in aid they pledged under a plan to improve governance and growth on the world's poorest continent. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a home-grown economic rescue plan aimed at boosting foreign investment in Africa, which gets a tiny percentage of the global total. It aims for improved governance in exchange for donor dollars and private foreign investment. "Our concern is that we have been feeding on promises from foreign partners such as the G8 but there have been no disbursements and that's a big issue," Nigerian Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji, chairman of a NEPAD ministerial panel, said at the close of a NEPAD conference in Johannesburg. Adeniji echoed Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo -- chairman of the 53-member African Union -- who said on Friday that support pledged by the G8 had "not been actively and successfully followed up". Adeniji said NEPAD faced a major test on a sceptical continent, which wanted to see proof that governments were committed to improved governance, fighting corruption and investment in major hurdles such as fighting HIV and AIDS. The bulk of people carrying HIV or AIDS are from Africa. --More 2151 Local Time 1851 GMT
