"We have bitten as much as we can chew. If we had tried to take a bigger bite... we would not have been able to absorb it," he told reporters in Pretoria.
"What would happen is that we would produce disappointment. With all these resources committed, (people would ask) what are these Africans doing now? They are not using it".
Mbeki was reporting back on this week's G8 summit in Evian, France, which gave the go-ahead for several detailed African development projects.
This was in support of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), an African Union (AU) strategy to uplift the continent.
Mbeki attended the G8 meeting along with the four other African architects of Nepad, which acknowledges that sound government is a pre-requisite for development.
Mbeki said having obtained aid from rich countries put a burden on Africa to produce results.
The European Union (EU) alone had set aside R9,4-billion a year to deal with water problems on the continent.
"We must be able in each of our countries to say this is our water development programme. These are the resources we are putting in".
It had happened, for example, in South Africa that water-pumping schemes came to a standstill because a generator broke down or because it was not refuelled.
"You can imagine what happens in other countries less developed than this one".
Mbeki said Nepad clearly needed a body to help ensure that projects were being put into practice.
This structure should be able to inform countries, for example, how much money was available to develop water resources and monitor progress in this regard.
"It should also assist with meeting the capacity constraint to access those funds".
The EU announced at the summit it had voted an annual R34,9-billion for programmes additional to those it already had in Africa.
"That is a lot of money. They expressed a serious concern - and I think quite correctly - about the capacity of the continent to spend that money," Mbeki said.
"That's why I am saying we need an implementation organ within Nepad to interact with our constituency, which is the African continent, to be able to absorb those funds".
Mbeki said it would be a complex matter to integrate and co-ordinate the aid agreed upon.
Each of the G8 member countries would, for example, make its own national commitment. Then there was the EU, which had its own agreements with the continent.
Britain mooted the idea of setting up an additional international financial facility to solve the problem.
"In addition to what the continent might be doing bilaterally with all of these players, you need a fund that is centralised...for all these different (aid) projects".
Mbeki said the summit also gave the go-ahead for a plan to develop an African capacity to promote peace and security on the continent.
This provided for setting up an African standby force that would include five regional brigades. It should enable the AU to undertake complex peace support operations by 2010.
"The matter is agreed (that) Africa needs this capacity. The continent now has to do the costing. The financing will come as soon we are able to say these are the specific financial needs," Mbeki said. – Sapa.
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