HC Deb 22 July 2002 vol 389 c763W
Tony Baldry

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans there are for developing a market access initiative for all least developed countries at the G8 level. [69472]

Mr. MacShane

The G8 Action Plan for Africa includes commitments on market access for least developed African countries. These reaffirm pledges made at the United Nations' Third Conference for least developed countries in Brussels in May last year, and reiterated in the context of the Doha development agenda of multilateral trade negotiations. We are keen to see action by other G8 countries to open their markets to LDCs, matching that taken by the EU in its February 2001 "Everything but Arms Initiative". Acting on the Kananaskis commitment to African LDCs would be an important step in this direction.

Tony Baldry

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans there are for taking forward the commitments made at the G8 summit to support African peace keeping capacity building. [69470]

Mr. MacShane

With its African partners, the G8 intends to deliver a joint plan, by 2003, for the development of African capability to undertake peace support operations (PSO), including at the regional level. This will involve improving co-ordination of existing donor peacekeeping training programmes, especially those of the UK, US and France in West Africa and elsewhere. Joint donor missions will be carried out to assess the logistical and training needs of sub-regional organisations like ECOWAS and SADC to improve, where possible, their capacity. Plans are already well advanced for the co-ordination of G8 support to the establishment of the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, Ghana. Bilaterally, the UK is already expanding the capacity of its PSO training programmes in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa and considering how best to provide regional PSO training support in Southern Africa.

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