MONTERREY (Mexico), March 22: US President George W. Bush urged leaders at a UN-anti-poverty summit here on Friday to require poor nations seeking aid to enact political and economic reforms, vowing to “lead by example.”

“Developed nations have a duty not only to share our wealth but also to encourage sources that produce wealth: economic freedom, political liberty, the rule of law and human rights,” he said in a speech.

Bush was striving to sell to some 50 leaders gathered here the idea of a “new compact” between rich and poor nations. Such a “compact” would focus on battling corruption, investing in education, and embracing free trade as engines of prosperity.

“Developing nations need greater access to markets of wealthy nations. And we must bring down the high trade barriers between developing nations themselves,” Bush said.

Bush also rebuked critics who have charged that Washington has been stingy with development aid, saying that he hoped to discard a “failed status quo” more focused on “arbitrary levels” rather than actual progress.

The United States has long been pilloried for its meager foreign aid record, allocating just 0.10 percent of its gross national income to development assistance — the lowest percentage in the industrialized world.

“For decades, the success of development aid was measured only in the resources spent, not the results achieved. Yet pouring money into a failed status quo does little to help the poor and can actually delay the progress of reform,” Bush countered.

“All of us here must focus on real benefits to the poor, instead of debating arbitrary levels on inputs for the rich,” he said. “The United States will lead by example.”

To that end, Bush touted his plan to increase annual US aid by 50 percent to roughly 16 billion dollars starting in 2006, placing the additional five billion in a special fund accessible only to nations seeking reforms.

“I’m here today to reaffirm the commitment of the United States, to bring hope and opportunity to the world’s poorest people and to call for a new contract for development defined by greater accountability for rich and poor nations alike,” he said.

Bush also said that he has tasked US Secretary of State Colin Powell and US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill with working with other nations to craft “clear and concrete objective” standards to determine a country’s elibility.

Faced with criticism that his plan is slow to make monies available to nations that need funds now, Bush said he would work with US lawmakers to “jump start” the initiative to make resources available over the next year.

And he couched his unorthodox aid package in the language of the US-led “war on terrorism” that he declared after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“We will challenge the poverty and hopelessness and lack of education and failed governments that too often allow conditions that terrorists can seize and try to turn to their advantage,” Bush said.

The planned increase has burnished Bush’s anti-poverty credentials among leaders gathered here under UN auspices to launch a global drive to reduce by half the number of people subsisting on less than a dollar a day by 2015.

But it has not silenced criticism.

“It falls short,” French Development Minister Charles Josselin said here earlier this week.

“Europe already has done three times more and it is going to commit itself to doing even more,” he said. “The United States will go from 0.10 percent to 0.13 percent, Europe will go from 0.33 percent to 0.39 percent.”

The conditions attached to the Bush plan have likewise sparked opposition.

“It is very dubious that much will go where will go where it is most needed,” said Steven Tibbet of the non-governmental organization War on Want.—AFP