Brown's sights set on lifting African aid

LONDON - Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, is determined to press ahead with his international finance facility to raise billions of dollars in aid for Africa even if the United States fails to sign up to the plans at next month's G8 summit in Scotland.

Brown will not back away from proposals to use the international money markets to increase financial support for the world's poorest countries.

He has campaigned for world leaders to double aid from US$50 billion ($72 billion) to US$100 billion a year by signing up to an international finance facility (IFF). Under the plan, countries would "lever in" an extra US$50 billion a year before 2015 by borrowing against long-term pledges of aid.

Government sources believe the negotiations on increasing aid and debt relief will go up to the wire, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair flying out to Washington next week to urge President George W. Bush to join British efforts to increase aid and dramatically boost multilateral debt relief to the poorest nations.

Blair will also visit Moscow, Berlin, Paris and have video conferences with Japan and Canada to garner support for the proposals in the run-up to the Gleneagles summit, while Brown will hold talks with European finance ministers next week to lobby for extra aid.

Authorities in Scotland were being forced to draw up contingency plans in response to Sir Bob Geldof's call for a million anti-poverty protesters to "descend on Edinburgh" for a rally to coincide with the G8 summit. Geldof is organising Live8 concert events for the relief of poverty in Africa.

Ministers and senior police officers expressed alarm yesterday after they appeared to have been taken by surprise by the scale of the protest on July 6.

Police in Edinburgh had expected 100,000 campaigners to flood into the city for the two-day summit of the world's most powerful leaders.

The Chancellor had allocated 20 million ($52 million) to the security operation.

With up to 10 times that number expected in Edinburgh between July 2 and 8, the cost of the police operation is spiralling and, according to some reports, could reach 100 million.

Brown has won support from France, Italy and Germany, while the Canadians are said to be "sympathetic" to the proposal.

But the Government has so far failed to win crucial backing from the US and Japan, raising fears that efforts to cut aid may fall short of its aim of doubling aid up to 2015 in order to meet the United Nations' millennium development goals.

The IFF is the cornerstone of Britain's plans to cut poverty and disease dramatically across the Third World during its presidency of the G8 industrialised nations.

Ministers are confident that a pilot IFF will go ahead to fund a major increase in vaccination, and have high hopes of introducing a wider European scheme for additional aid even if the Americans are not persuaded to join.

Questioned about the prospects for the IFF last week, Brown insisted: "Whatever happens and however many countries join the international finance facility, it will be established."

Aid agency workers believe a European version of the IFF could still come up with an extra US$20 billion a year in aid, even without Americansupport. "That could still buy a lot of schools and hospitals and would have to be seen as a triumph," said one.

It is estimated that every extra US$1 billion in annual aid generated between now and 2015 could bring 25 million people out of poverty.

Britain's former International Development Secretary has cast a shadow over the aims of the Live8 concerts.

Clare Short, who had responsibility for Africa in the Cabinet before resigning over the Iraq war, said she feared it would end in disillusionment and cynicism.

"My fear is there will be all these people wearing the wrist bands and thinking they are helping, when nothing is agreed to stop the killing on the ground, and Africa goes on getting poorer," she said.

Short made a forceful appeal to Blair and Bush to take firm action on Africa by pressing the UN to establish a "peace enforcement" force in Darfur and other parts of the continent wracked by violence at the hands of armed militias.

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