TOYAKO, Japan: Leaders of the world’s richest nations yesterday opened a summit aimed at battling skyrocketing oil and food prices, as pressure mounted on them to live up to their pledges to help Africa.

Leaders including US President George W. Bush gathered in the secluded spa resort of Toyako in northern Japan for a three-day session, with seven African leaders joining them on the first day to take up the plight of the continent.

Riot police with shields stood under pouring rain and blocked some 50 protesters who had camped out in the meadowlands from getting anywhere near the plush hotel where the world’s top leaders were meeting.

The closest that demonstrators got was the other side of sapphire-blue Lake Toya, where they shouted slogans in the improbable hope that leaders on the hilltop on the other side would hear them.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso set the tone for the meeting by proposing the creation of a one-billion-euro ($1.57-billion) EU fund to fight hunger and help farmers in poor countries with seeds and fertilizer.

Food prices have nearly doubled in three years and set off riots in parts of the developing world, which are also being hit hard by record oil prices.

In the closed-door session, African leaders pushed for the Group of Eight nations to make good on aid promises, saying the continent was bearing the brunt of rising food prices, a Japanese official who was present said.

“Because of the recent surge in food prices, African agriculture’s supply and demand is not balanced and we would like the G-8 to fully support” our cause,” the official quoted African delegates as telling G-8 leaders.

Pope Benedict XVI also called on G-8 leaders to focus on the world’s weakest and poorest people, as they are “more vulnerable now because of speculation and financial turbulence and their perverse effects on the prices of food and energy.” But aid groups said that some of the G-8 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — were walking away from earlier commitments.

The club of rich nations promised in 2005 in Britain to boost aid to Africa by a further 25 billion dollars by 2010. But UN and African Union figures indicate that only less than a quarter of that amount has been forthcoming.

The Oxfam charity said that Canada in particular was working to water down aid pledges, with their position backed by France and Italy. “We can’t let them step away from their promises,” Oxfam activist Max Lawson said. “For rich countries this is peanuts. For African countries this is life or death.”

The G-8 was joined for yesterday’s so-called outreach session on Africa by the leaders of Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.

The G-8 leaders were expected to focus at their main session today on soaring oil prices, which have imperiled global economic growth by stoking inflation, prompting warnings by aid groups not to forget Africa.

In Mali, hundreds of activists from around the world gathered in the dusty town of Katibougou for a poor people’s summit organized to counterbalance the G-8.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick yesterday urged the Group of Eight powers to boost food aid for poor nations and tear down trade barriers that make it hard to buy emergency shipments.

“How we respond to this double jeopardy of soaring fuel and food prices is a test of the global system’s commitment to help the most vulnerable. And it’s a test that we cannot afford to fail,” he said on the sidelines of the G-8 summit.

Zoellick urged the rich nations’ club to provide “safety net support” for the most needy, to boost support for food assistance provided by the UN World Food Program and to provide seeds and fertilizers to poor farmers.