British Treasury chief Gordon Brown began a six-day visit to Africa on Wednesday by touring a school in what some say is the largest slum in Africa, to see the impact of Kenya’s free primary education policy on efforts to cut poverty.
Brown plans to use his trip to Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa to step up his appeal for greater international commitment to tackling global poverty.
Britain has made improving living standards in Africa, the world’s poorest continent, a priority during its presidency of the G-8 and European Union this year.
He told students of the Kibera slum’s Olympic Primary School in Nairobi, one of the best performing in the country, that he wanted to see for himself the impact of having more teachers, books and classrooms in Kenya’s primary schools.
”I bring good wishes from the people in the United Kingdom to people here,” Brown told the crowded classroom.
”Could I say how much a pleasure it is for me to be here with you.”
The largest part of Britain’s $35-million aid to Kenya funds education, said British High Commissioner Edward Clay. The rest of the money goes to programmes seeking to improve health care, the environment and the livelihoods of people in rural areas, Clay said.
Brown hopes to use his visit to renew calls for debt relief for the world’s poorest countries, fairer trade and a massive increase in aid.
He is scheduled to meet with government leaders, fellow finance ministers, aid workers and business representatives during the visit.
Britain fears that the goals of the UN’s 2000 Millennium Summit — to reverse the poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people by 2015 — will not be met without urgent action.
Brown has called for half a trillion dollars in new aid for poor nations over the next 10 years — likening the initiative to the United States’s Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II. He is urging other countries to back his proposal for an International Finance Facility through which donors from richer nations would
raise funds on the international markets. – Sapa-AP