Finance ministers from the worlds richest countries have been meeting leaders from Arab Spring countries to discuss reconstruction and development. Representatives from Libya, Egypt and Tunisia also met officials from the IMF and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Marseille who pledged a package of aid worth $38bn to boost reconstruction and democracy

The G7 group of rich industrialised countries -plus Russia – said it would provide a programme of support to Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia. Although Libya wasn’t formally added to that list, its representatives attended today’s meeting in Marseille.

The countries were told that a pool of $38bn in aid would be made available to countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean aid recobnstruction and the move towards democracy. It’s understood that sum would be funded by multi-national bodies such as the IMF, World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Chancellor George Osborne said he saw the EBRD playing a similar role in the Middle East as it played in eastern Europe after the fall of communism in the early 1990s.