G-8: World banks to give $20 bn for Arab Spring

Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations today said that international development banks could give more than $20 billion to Egypt and Tunisia to support countries that overthrew dictators this year and are trying to establish free democracies.

President Barack Obama and other G-8 leaders meeting in France said in a final statement that their countries will also "mobilize substantial bilateral support to scale up this effort." The statement did not provide breakdowns of what aid specific G-8 countries would provide.

The leaders encouraged other countries, including rich Arab world nations, to contribute as well to shoring up economies in Egypt and Tunisia, where uprisings this year overthrew dictators but also scared away tourists and investors.

"In the short term, our collective aim is to ensure that instability does not undermine the process of political reform, and that social cohesion and macroeconomic stability are both sustained," the declaration said.

The more than $20 billion in aid from multilateral development banks is aimed at "suitable reform efforts" from now through 2013, the statement said, without elaborating. Some $3.5 billion would come from the European Investment Bank.

They did not lay out exactly what the money would go for, or whether the figure includes money already promised for the region. US and European officials had said that it's too early to come up with firm dollar figures.