Britain, France mobilise $4b for poor countries

Britain and France said Saturday they would mobilise four billion dollars (2.7 billion euros) for poor countries by giving up part of a recent IMF allocation of an international reserve asset.
"With this initiative, Britain and France show the necessary solidarity between nations.... I hope all countries that can do it will follow this initiative," French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said in a statement.
International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomed the plan to help support the streamlined lending for poor countries, which he has called the "innocent victims" of a global crisis not of their making.
"This is incredibly helpful for low-income countries," Strauss-Kahn told reporters. "It's a beginning and I hope that other countries including the richest countries in the world will follow the same route."
The two countries said they would each donate 2.0 billion dollars in special drawing rights (SDRs), a special IMF asset, as loan resources to the fund to help support lending to low-income countries hit by the economic crisis.
International aid agency Oxfam International has called for the world's developed nations to transfer half of their SDRs -- equivalent to around 89 billion dollars -- to poor countries as part of broader development financing.
"Rich countries need to go much farther than this four billion dollars," Oxfam International policy adviser Caroline Pearce said after the announcement.
The IMF in July committed to step up concessional lending to poor countries to 17 billion dollars by 2014 including eight billion dollars by 2011.
Britain and France, members of the Group of Seven richest countries, made the announcement after G7 finance chiefs met in Istanbul, Turkey's financial centre, ahead of IMF and World Bank annual meetings next week.