From Prof Jeffrey D. Sachs.

Sir, As the Group of Eight industrial nations would like China and India to be effective donors in Africa ("G8 calls for increased scrutiny of aid," March 28), the G8 would do well to lead by example.

The G8 can finally honour the 37-year-old promise to provide 0.7 per cent of gross national product as aid. The G8 can finally provide African countries with a yearly timetable for the promised but elusive "doubling of aid by 2010".

The G8 can finally treat the annual 10m deaths of impoverished children from controllable diseases as a solvable emergency, for example, through a massive distribution of anti-malaria bed nets, noting that the cost of five years of comprehensive bed-net coverage in Africa would be less than one day's Pentagon spending! The G8 can restrain itself from cooking the aid books through dubious accounting of debt relief. Members of the G8 can stop pushing to count military training as development aid.

China and India are much appreciated as donors in Africa because they are getting the job done: building roads, irrigation systems, power plants, hospitals and clinics. This is the kind of practical aid that the G8 can and should champion on a scale to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Jeffrey D. Sachs,

Director,

Earth Institute,

Columbia University,

New York, NY 10027, US