United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged the Group of Eight (G8) rich nations to help Africa by agreeing to promote fairer rules of international trade at their summit this week.
"Most countries, given the chance, would prefer to trade themselves out of poverty rather than live on handouts," Mr Annan said at a meeting of African Union (AU) heads of state and government in Libya.
Mr Annan said he welcomed agreement by G8 nations in recent weeks to expand development assistance and debt relief to Africa.
But he hoped the summit in Scotland would pave the way for progress at the current Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations, giving Africans greater access to rich country markets.
Developing countries, many of them mainly agricultural economies, complain that subsidies to farmers in rich countries make it hard for them to compete in Europe and the United States.
Many African countries have long said they would prefer to see reform of international trade rather than increases in development aid.