Barely mentioning the topic of delivering aid pledges to Africa, finance ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) wealthy nations on Saturday called on poor nations in Africa to embrace "good financial governance" to tackle poverty.

In a communique issued at the end of their two-day gathering at Lake Schwielowsee near Potsdam, finance ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States said that they strongly support efforts to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of public financial management in Africa.

"Improved financial governance and aid flows must go hand in hand if we are to tackle poverty," said the G8 ministers who also put up a set of recommendations to this purpose in the "Action Plan for Good Financial Governance in Africa" attached to the statement.

As to the topic of development aid, the G8 ministers fell short of taking concrete actions, they only said: "We reaffirm our commitment to meeting our responsibilities as donors, in particular the importance of delivering on our aid commitments."

British non-governmental organization Oxfam in a statement on Friday accused the G8 ministers of trying to duck discussion of their failure on aid to Africa.

"In previous years this final meeting of finance ministers is the place where deals are struck but this year ministers are instead trying to avoid any discussion let alone action on their failure to increase aid," Oxfam said.

At the Gleneagles G8 summit two years ago, the G8 nations pledged to increase aid for all developing countries by around 50 billion U.S. dollars per year by 2010, of which at least 25 billion extra per year for Africa.

But according to the Africa Progress Panel headed by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, rich countries were only 10 percent of the way to their target.

Source: Xinhua