British Treasury chief Gordon Brown outlined what he called a ”modern Marshall plan” on Friday to boost Africa’s fortunes with debt relief, aid and trade.
He proposed erasing all the debt poor countries owe to international organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.
This will follow up the cancellation in recent years of much of the debt the poorest nations owe directly to Britain and other rich countries.
Britain has made fighting poverty in Africa a top priority of its yearlong chairmanship of the Group of Eight (G8) wealthy nations. Brown said the new proposals will be presented to G8 finance ministers and leaders ahead of a summit next month in Gleneagles, Scotland.
”These proposals represent a new deal between rich and poor countries,” he said in Edinburgh, Scotland.
”They are a modern Marshall plan for Africa and the developing world,” he said, referring to the massive American programme that helped rebuild Europe after World War II.
”This is not a time for timidity nor is it a time to fear reaching too high,” he said.
”This year … is our chance to help reverse the fortunes of a continent and it is our opportunity to help transform the lives of millions.”
Britain hopes to reach agreement on its anti-poverty agenda at the summit, which starts on July 6. Talks will be held every day until then to pressure G8 nations to back the ideas, Brown said.
In a blitz of travel in the coming weeks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is meeting with many of the G8 leaders, including United States President George Bush, to push the African plans and his proposals to fight global warming.
It’s an ambitious agenda and has received a mixed response from other member countries so far. The United States has rejected many of the British plans.
Among the proposals Brown announced were boosting direct aid payments, selling bonds on the international market to fund immunisation programs and eliminating trade barriers that make it difficult for African nations to sell goods in the rich world.
”The scale of what we outline is very substantial indeed,” said Brown, who is considered Blair’s most likely successor.
”We are determined the empowerment of the people of Africa … can be made possible by decisions at Gleneagles.”
He said that without relief from the debt owed to multilateral institutions, the poorest countries will have to pay them as much as $15-billion over the next 10 years.
Britain has agreed to take on 10% of the amount 22 poor countries owe the institutions, and Canada and The Netherlands have made similar pledges, Brown said. He urged other rich countries to pitch in so all the debt can be forgiven.
The money, he said, should be used to fund free primary and secondary education for as many as 100-million children in the poor world who don’t go to school.
Brown also proposed selling bonds on world markets to raise $4-billion (â,¬3,3-billion), which he said could save five million lives before 2015 and five million after 2015.
Britain, France and Sweden have already agreed to contribute, he said. The plan will test the idea of a larger bond-selling plan for broader development aid, he said.
Britain also wants rich nations to encourage pharmaceutical companies to work on HIV/Aids and malaria vaccines by promising to buy them in large quantities if they are developed.
He also said it was crucial to eliminate export subsidies and other trade barriers that make it difficult for poor countries to sell their products to consumers in the rich world. Specially targeted aid should help poor businesspeople boost their capacity to do business internationally, he said.
”If sub-Saharan Africa could regain just an additional one percent of global trade, it would earn $70-billion more a year in exports and that is nearly five times what it receives in … aid,” he said. ‒ Sapa-AP