Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Thursday a bigger-than-expected boost in German foreign aid, a week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit where she aims to make Africa a key issue, according to dpa. "German aid spending will rise by about 750 million euros in 2008," she said in remarks to appear Friday in the mass-circulation daily Bild. The gain would be about 14 per cent compared to this year. Government officials who asked not to be quoted by name said the disclosure was meant to influence the summit, though the boost mainly fulfils commitments already given to increase aid. Merkel said the rise was the biggest of any department in the federal budget. Germany's 2007 aid budget was about 4.5 billion euros (6 billion dollars). Merkel told Bild: "Money isn't everything. You could pump a vast amount of money into Africa and do the completely wrong things with it." She added, "We have to be partners who are equal in standing, with rights, but also with duties. The money has to get through to the people and really improve things. That does not always happen." Aid Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, in remarks to appear Friday in the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, said similar top-ups of 750 million euros would follow in the years 2009 to 2011 for a total boost of 3 billion euros. "It is meant as a signal to the other G8 countries," she said. "Everyone has to realize that Africa's problems will spread here if we don't help fix them at source." At the 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the industrialized nations agreed to gradually boost foreign aid spending to 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product by 2015. They must reach 0.51 per cent by 2010. Currently Germany only spends 0.36 per cent of GDP on aid.
