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.