JOHANNESBURG, June 19: From Aids sufferers struggling to feed their children to well-off businessmen, people across Africa hope rich nations will take bold action to help the world’s poorest continent when they meet next month.

They desperately want the July 6-8 summit of wealthy countries in Gleneagles, Scotland, to signal a new commitment to help improve life in African countries wracked by poverty.

Banta Adhaimbo, a 44-year-old Kenyan mother-of-three with Aids, said the Group of Eight (G8) summit will mean nothing to her unless it translates into more food and medicines.

“If I could speak to the leaders, I would say to them: ‘give our children education, pay our rent, find us food and medical services’. We have nothing,” said Adhaimbo, wheezing from tuberculosis and hobbled by a leg infection.

In neighbouring Sudan, parts of which have been ravaged by war, Abdel Rahim Sadig was more upbeat. Helping Africa is an investment that rich countries cannot afford to miss, he said.

“If you help these countries, this boost will come around again to the first world countries and hence it is more business for them,” said Sadig, a businessman in the capital Khartoum.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants rich nations to cancel up to 100 per cent of Africa’s multilateral debt, fork out an extra $25 billion in annual aid to 2010 and open up Europe to African exports. Africa must practise good governance in return.

A ‘Marshall Plan’ drafted by Blair’s Commission for Africa, which included some African leaders, prescribes seven per cent annual economic growth for the continent as the ticket to recovery.

“Africa represents a sin of omission for the rich world,” said John Stremlau, head of the international relations at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

“I think Blair’s doing it for enlightened self-interest. He sees Africa as a future partner for Europe, not just a place to give aid and put out wars,” Stremlau said.

Blair faces tough talks at Gleneagles as he has yet to convince all G8 members, notably US President George W. Bush, to commit to more aid, end farm subsidies and free up trade.

But with Bush’s backing, the G8 cancelled $40 billion in debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank of 18 mainly African countries — and Africa wants more.

“We appreciate the debt relief we currently get but we would like more. We join those who want total debt cancellation,” Tanzanian Finance Minister Basil Mramba told Reuters.

Some Africa governments say they pay 30-40 per cent of their foreign export revenues on debt interest payments.

“It is our hope that they (rich countries) will agree (to) increase aid and the volume of trade from Africa,” said Kipruto Kirwa, Kenya’s agriculture minister.

Agriculture underpins African economies and they would benefit from cutting the subsidies paid to farmers in the US and Europe, new World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has said.

One analyst said the G8 was under pressure to deliver something.