Bill Gates asks G20 to boost dev efforts

CANNES, Nov 3 (AFP): Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is asking the Group of 20 nations to step up development efforts to ease poverty, saying this is an important investment despite economic woes in wealthy countries. "Development isn't just good for people in poor countries; it's good for all of us," Gates wrote in a Washington Post essay yesterday. Gates, whose foundation has spent billions on aid efforts around the globe, is to submit a report to the G20 group of advanced and emerging economies at a two-day summit that opens Thursday in the southern French city of Cannes. With countries accounting for 85 per cent of global output to seek measures to try to prevent the global economy sliding back into a recession, Gates recognised that governments are under pressure to cut back on spending. "The world will not balance its books by cutting back on aid, but it will do irreparable damage to global stability, to the growth potential of the global economy and to the livelihoods of millions of the poorest people," Gates said.