Summit on poverty eradication ends

African leaders ended their two-day summit on eradicating poverty on Wednesday saying they were determined to meet the problem “head on”, according to news reports. The 20 leaders said participants at the meeting in Libreville, Gabon, recognised that poverty reduction was a challenge they had to “take up themselves”, AFP reported. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Michel Camdessus told African leaders on Tuesday as he opened the summit that they “must act now” to improve their economies if they were to wipe out poverty. On Wednesday morning, African Development Bank (ADB) President Omar Kabbaj said average annual economic growth (now 4 percent) must double if African countries were to keep ahead of poverty, which affects 55 percent of the continent’s population, AFP reported. The summit, organised by Gabon’s government, the IMF and the World Bank, was preceded on Monday by a meeting of finance ministers.