Sudan seeks $6 billion at Oslo donors' meeting

By John Acher

OSLO (Reuters) - Sudan will ask donor nations meeting this week for $6 billion over the next three years to help rebuild Africa's largest nation after decades of civil wars, and host nation Norway said it would provide nearly $500 million.

The Sudan consortium, which began meeting on Monday, has met yearly since a 2005 north-south peace deal ended Africa's longest civil war.

It is the stage for richer nations to show their support for maintaining peace in Sudan by pledging development funds.

But south Sudan's semi-autonomous government says it has received less than donors pledged in the past, while funds earmarked for development have been diverted to aid for Darfur, where civil war erupted five years ago.

Southern Sudan Minister for Presidential Affairs Luka Biong Deng told Reuters the inflexibility of donors and the World Bank-run system for distributing aid, and said the "low capacity" of Sudan's central government was also a problem. He did not elaborate.

"There is now an improvement, there is an increased level of disbursement in the last six months," Deng said.

Norway would allocate 2.5 billion crowns ($487.3 million) over the next four years, Deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johansen told Reuters on the sidelines of the May 5-7 meeting.

"I also hope this will encourage other states both to follow up on their previous obligations and come up with new pledges," he said after talks dealing with the Darfur crisis.

"PROVEN TRACK RECORD"

The U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Richard Williamson, urged Beijing to use its economic might to influence events in Darfur and expressed disappointment at China's absence from the donors' meeting.

"China is the country with the deepest economic involvement with the nation of Sudan," Williamson told Reuters. "So if they were to choose to use that influence constructively, they could have an impact, and one that other members of the international community would like to see them take," he said.

International experts estimate some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been driven from their homes in five years of revolt in Darfur. Khartoum blames the Western media for exaggerating the conflict and puts the death toll at 10,000.

A report to the consortium, put together by the Khartoum government in conjunction with south Sudan's administration, said Sudan needed $6.1 billion for development over the next three years -- on top of $2 billion in humanitarian aid.

Deng said Sudan would face many new needs up to 2011, including preparations for elections in 2009, a referendum on the possible secession of the south in 2011 and as well as "making unity... an attractive option for the people of Sudan."

South Sudan's government said it had received only $550 million of the $4.1 billion pledged by donors following the peace accord in 2005.