A landmark plan of action, targetting an estimated 72 billion dollars a year in external funding, to help Africa win the battle against poverty was on Tuesday launched at the gathering of the continent's political leaders in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. President John Agyekum Kufuor is among the Heads of State and Government of the 53-member nation bloc, who attended the two-day summit held under the theme "Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on Water and Sanitation." The plan, an initiative of the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, provides a roadmap for fighting extreme poverty, hunger and disease to achieve the MDGs by 2015 and comes at a time when there is growing anxiety that many African Nations are not on track to meet the goals. It outlines focussed investments in agriculture, education, health and infrastructure, as critical to present and future efforts to reach the MDGs and was jointly produced and endorsed by the UN, African Union (AU) Commission, African Development Bank (AfDB),and the European Union (EU) Commission. The others are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Islamic Development Bank Group, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. AU Chairman Jakaya Kikwete, described it as "a call to action" and said it needed to be implemented immediately to halt the spread of suffering. Mr Jean Ping, Chairperson of the AU Commission, said African leaders were looking to the Group of Eight most industrialized nations (G8) to turn their existing promises into action. "The credibility of international commitments is at stake. There are many development success stories across Africa that can be replicated in more countries with additional funding." He noted that the existing EU and G8 commitments, combined with the present aid flows from others sources, were sufficient to fund the plan. With the momentum generated by strong economic growth rates in many African countries, increased commitment to domestic resource mobilization, improving governance and better policy performance, Africa could still achieve the MDGs by the year 2015. These solid efforts by the governments needed to be matched by follow-through on G8 aid pledges to help the continent to make major gains against poverty. The G8 at its summit in Gleanagles in 2005 pledged to increase official development assistance (ODA) to Africa by 25 billion dollars annually by 2010. Current statistics show that net annual ODA to Africa has so far increased by only about a quarter of the 25 billion dollars promised. Meanwhile, President Kufuor, is scheduled to give his farewell address at the summit later in the day. Measured in 2007 US dollars, the Gleanagles commitment implied total net ODA flow to Africa of about 62 billion dollars per year. Source: GNA