(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-04-05 14:58

TOKYO - Ministers from industrial and fast-growing nations opened talks Saturday on ways to maintain foreign aid to Africa and other impoverished regions amid a worldwide economic downturn.

They also will discuss the growing threats of climate change at the two-day meeting.

Taking part are development ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations and large, emerging players in the donor community, such as Brazil, China and India.

The meeting, held ahead of the G-8 summit in July, kicked off a day after the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said aid from major donor countries slumped last year amid a global economic downturn.

The Paris-based think tank said the United States and other wealthy nations were backtracking on pledges and falling behind ambitious targets set in 2005 to help the world's neediest.

The G-8 groups Britain, Italy, Canada, the United States, France, Russia, Germany and Japan.

Officials from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa attended the meeting as emerging donors.