JOHANNESBURG, July 8: Africa welcomed the Group of Eight’s $25 billion boost in annual aid on Friday, but worried the rich world’s latest promise may fizzle in the face of Africa’s desperate needs.

“Intentions and actualisation are not the same thing,” said Kenyan Finance Minister David Mwiraria. “We would like to see a situation where there is money now.”

The Group of Eight (G8) ended its Gleneagles summit in Scotland announcing members would more than double aid to Africa by 2010 and promising to work to end the farm export subsidies that undercut Africa’s own agricultural products.

The pledge capped a dramatic month of global goodwill for Africa marked by the worldwide Live 8 rock concerts and promises by G8 leaders that they will stay focused on the world’s poorest continent — even after their own summit was thrown into chaos by Thursday’s London bomb attacks.

Critics said the promise of new help remained vague, with the aid increase years away and no deadline for the end to agricultural export subsidies.

“The people have roared but the G8 has whispered. The promise to deliver by 2010 is like waiting five years before responding to the tsunami,” said Kumi Naidoo of the pressure group Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

“Given the track record of G8 leaders of broken promises we will also be closely monitoring their commitments.”

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the chairman of the African Union, pronounced himself satisfied with the Gleneagles deal for Africa, whose 800 million people are still plagued by war, disease and dire poverty.

Saying the continent’s problems were being addressed ‘realistically and acceptably’, Obasanjo said: “The meeting of the G8 leaders and African leaders in Gleneagles is a great success and we thank and congratulate Prime Minister Tony Blair for the success achieved.”

But many African officials, activists and aid workers said the proposals did not go far enough.—Reuters