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Near ly 50 African nations and the international community today discussed peace and the failure of global trade talks as they began the second day of a three-day conference on African development here.

Sadako Ogata, former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, was among the guest speakers during a session on peace consolidation at the Third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (Ticad III).

"We discussed conflict-prevention, conflict-management, and there was input from many countries, and Sierra Leone, for example, spoke and gave the update about what is going on in the country," said a South African official.

Sierra Leone was ravaged by civil war from 1991-2001 that left 200 000 dead and many thousands mutilated.

Rebels against the government funded much of their insurgency with illegal trade in "blood diamonds," helping to leave the western African nation as one of the poorest countries in the world.

"We also discussed that we should put more resources in post-conflict reconstruction development.

We do not put enough resources in post-conflict efforts," the official said.

The situation in Liberia was also discussed during the session, he said.

Rebels and the government reached a peace deal in August with the departure into exile of former president Charles Taylor, bringing an end to 14 years of nearly continuous war.

Apart from the session on peace and conflict in Africa, the conference held meetings on agriculture, health and infrastructure.

"We talked about agricultural development and ways to increase our productivity... We also talked about that African nations were unhappy with the result of the Cancun (WTO) meeting," said C M.

Kanyenda, director of agricultural development at the Malawi ministry of agriculture.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) talks, seen as vital to spurring momentum toward a new global trade pact, fell apart on September 14 without an accord in Cancun, Mexico, due to bitter disagreements between rich and poor nations.

They were pitted against each other on farm trade liberalization and the 'Singapore issues,' which include cross-border investment, competition policies, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement.

"Because of the collapse of the Cancun meeting, we believe a new meeting should be convened soon," Kanyenda said.

The Tokyo conference has attracted 23 heads of state or government from Africa and officials from 37 nations and those from international organisations including the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Ticad was first created in 1993 under Japan's initiative to raise international support for African development issues and has been held every five years.

Yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced Tokyo would give Africa one billion dollars in aid over the next five years to cover health and medical care including measures against Aids, education, water, and food assistance.

At the second Ticad in 1998, Japan pledged to provide $750-million to African countries over a five-year period to ensure basic human needs.

Over the last decade, Japanese assistance to African development has totalled $12-billion.

But in terms of trade, just one per cent of Japan's total volume of trade is with African countries and more than 50% of that trade is with South Africa. – Sapa-AFP.

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