Promises that are kept are promises that count....

The morning session of the opening day of the conference is wrapping up.

The key messages from the two sessions and the joint press conference (IMF MD, President Kikwete, and Kofi Annan) are two-fold: a) Africa has the primary responsibility to deal with the fallout from the global financial crisis; b) However, the international community must fulfill its aid commitments and accelerate assistance once the extent of the damage from the crisis is known.

In his opening speech, the Managing Director said that the current crisis could be described as the "great recession" and reinforced the Fund's commitment to Africa. Kofi Annan eloquently summed up what rich nations need to do in terms of fulfilling aid commitments; "Promises that are kept are the promises that count," he said at the press conference.

But African journalists needed a little bit more persuasion about the merits of the conference. A Ghanaian journalist asked the panel why finance ministers and other delegates were meeting at the conference when they should be addressing the continent's pressing problems at home. The MD said that while he understood the journalists impatience, the conference was an important forum to discuss how Africa should deal with the fallout of the financial crisis.