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TOKYO — Japan's foreign minister urged the Group of Eight industrialized nations to step up assistance to Africa and other impoverished regions as talks on development aid opened Saturday amid a worldwide economic downturn.
"I am also determined to stop and reverse the downward trend of Japan's official development aid," Masahiko Komura said as ministers from G-8 countries and large, emerging donor nations, such as Brazil and China, opened a two-day meeting.
The meeting will also address the growing threats of climate change.
The G-8 group includes Britain, Italy, Canada, the United States, France, Russia, Germany and Japan.
Officials from emerging donor nations Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa are also attending the meeting.
Held ahead of the G-8 summit in July, the Tokyo meeting came one day after the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said aid from major donor countries slumped last year.
The Paris-based think tank said the United States and other wealthy nations were backtracking on pledges and falling behind ambitious targets set in 2005 to help the world's neediest.
Foreign aid from the 22 major donor countries that the OECD measures dropped 8.4 percent in 2007 to US$103.7 billion.
Japan's development aid, which has been on a downward trend since 2000, fell 30 percent to US$7.7 billion in 2007 from the previous year, the OECD said. Japan ranked fifth after the U.S., Germany, France and Britain.
