Brown: The world must act on African poverty

Thursday, 13 January 2005 12:00 AM

Speaking during his four-nation tour of Africa Chancellor Gordon Brown repeated that 2005 is a "make or break year" for action on world poverty.

And he added that the world should not stand by whilst millions of children lack access to basic education.

Mr Brown is touring Africa to raise awareness of the UK's presidency of the G8, and garner support for his plan of an international finance facility to help poor countries.

Mr Brown has called for a "new Marshall plan" for the continent - a reference to US-backed plan to rebuild Western Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The visit began in Kenya, where Mr Brown met Wangari Maathai, the Nobel peace prize pro-democracy campaigner.

With Mrs Maathai he planted a tree at a park where she and three other women were brutally beaten by police in 1992.

He then held talks with Kenyan president, Mwai Kibaki.

In Nairobi, the Chancellor visited classrooms and met teachers at Olympic primary school on the edge of Kibera, one of Africa's largest slum districts.

There he told teachers: "I am very proud of what you are doing.

"We want to work with you to provide universal primary education of the highest standard. We are delighted you are making such progress and we want to help you do more."

He later told journalists: "It is simply not acceptable in the modern age for the rest of the world to stand by and have hundreds of millions of children not getting the chance at education."

Mr Brown has said 2005 will be "a make or break year" in the fight against global poverty.

Mr Brown is also expected to visit Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa on his week-long whistlestop tour.

He is expected to see a HIV/Aids orphanage in Tanzania and a women's credit union in Mozambique before moving on to meet the Commission for Africa in Cape Town.

Michael Ancram, Shadow Foreign Secretary, acknowledged the laudable intention to help Africa escape poverty and oppression, but said Mr Brown's "atlas" had "a gaping hole in that continent where mine shows Zimbabwe".

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