Sudan is seeking $6 billion in funding for 2008-2011 at a three-day donors conference in the Norwegian capital.

The Sudan consortium has met yearly since the 2005 peace deal ended Africa's longest civil war, though upheaval continues in the Darfur region.

"National unity is the key strategic concern and objective which can only be achieved through sustainable development," Sudan's Vice President Ali Osman Taha told the conference.

Taha urged donors to provide support for development to 2011 and said: "It is high time to make the transition from the humanitarian to the development focus because it is development that sustains peace."

Taha said development in Sudan so far did not meet the country's needs, but he said it was crucial to know how much funding was available in order to plan and urged donors also to help resolve Sudan's debt problems.

"We are still keen to carry out our commitments," he said, referring to Sudan's obligations under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

Norway urged Sudan's government of national unity in the north and the semi-autonomous government of south Sudan to carry out the CPA and confirmed a senior official's remarks on Tuesday that it would provide $500 million over the next four years.

"The international community stands united in that we want to assist both of you in making unity in Sudan attractive," Norway's Minister of Development Aid and the Environment Erik Solheim told the conference. Sudan is headed for elections in 2009 and a referendum in 2011 on a possible secession of the south.

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Donor nations, the United Nations and international financial organisations hope to prevent a split because they fear that could lead to a new eruption of violence, though the CPA allowed for the referendum.

"There is huge support in the international community for making unity attractive because no one thinks the country can break up in a Czechoslovak manner, that is in a peaceful and easy way," Solheim told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.

Solheim said that the donors wanted to see "solid movement towards peace" as a basis for providing more economic support.

He said he had no estimate of the amount that would be promised at a pledging session on Wednesday but said: "We encourage each and everyone to make solid pledges, and more importantly to deliver the cash afterwards."

The European Union's aid commissioner Louis Michel said that the EU would pledge 300 million euros ($465 million) in development cooperation aid for the next six years, in addition to humanitarian aid of more than 100 million euros for 2008.

World Bank Vice President Oby Ezekwesili said a key challenge is for Sudan to use its oil wealth to benefit its people and she urged it to adopt to a set of international principles of transparency for the industry.