Brown tackles world poverty

HE may lack the tousled pop star appeal of Live Aid hero Bob Geldof, but this weekend Gordon Brown has been pushing his own ambitious plan to help ease the plight of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa and other desperately poor parts of the planet.

At the International Monetary Fund spring meetings in Washington, Brown was trying to recruit other leading nations to his poverty-reduction initiative - the International Finance Facility.

The Chancellor launched the IFF last year and since then it has won the backing of Geldof, fellow pop star Bono, Nelson Mandela and even the Pope.

A number of African nations have supported and even demanded that his idea be implemented.

Brown believes that his initiative is the only way to achieve the United Nations' target of halving the number of the world's population living in extreme poverty by 2015.

His idea is to double the amount of development aid to $100bn in the years to 2015 by issuing bonds on the international capital markets.

No one could dispute the need for more action on world poverty. A World Bank report issued at the Washington meetings found that the proportion of people living in extreme poverty in developing countries had dropped from 40% to 21% of the world's population in the 20 years to 2001.

The catch is that the improvement was solely down to rapid economic growth in China and India. Elsewhere, including sub-Saharan Africa - where nearly half of the population is below the poverty line - the problem actually got worse.

What this means in human terms is that more than 60m people are infected with HIV, more than 840m people suffer from chronic hunger and more than 10m children under the age of five are dying each year.

Affluent nations are simply not doing enough. As World Bank chief James Wolfensohn noted, global spending on weapons is $900bn, compared to just $50bn on development. The battle to combat poverty, he said, has been pushed offstage by the so-called war on terror, even though the two are related.

He added: 'We frankly don't think you can have peace and stability unless you deal with the question of poverty.'

Gordon Brown has a genuine commitment to helping eradicate poverty and also hopes to bring relief to heavily-indebted poor countries.

Aid organisations say his sincerity is evident and that he spends an unusual amount of time on development for a finance minister. But the crucial question is whether his IFF has a fighting chance of success.

The idea of issuing bonds, likely to have a topnotch triple-A credit rating, is perfectly feasible. It would have the advantage of 'front-loading' aid, so that it can be deployed quickly, saving lives that would otherwise be lost.

One potential drawback, according to lobby group Action Aid, is that the interest on the bonds means the total cost of the scheme would be 40% to 60% more than developing countries would actually receive, raising questions over whether it is the bestvalue approach.

Critics also also point out that without improving delivery channels - often blamed for failing to ensure that help goes to the most needy - Brown's scheme might result in larger amounts of money slipping into undeserving hands or being leached away by bureaucracy.

Activists are anxious that the IFF is not used by richer countries as an excuse not to increase their aid budgets. Many, including the UK, already fail to reach the UN target of devoting 0.7% of national income to overseas aid.

A big question mark hangs over Brown's ability to win enough backing from other leading nations. His biggest ally is thought to be Canadian premier Paul Martin. Other European nations including France and the Netherlands might come onside, along with the Scandinavians.

The US seems unlikely to come on board, but supporters of the plan say it could still work as a grouping of willing nations.

Brown's plan may not be perfect, but for nations struggling with the curse of poverty, it is certainly better than nothing.

Ruth Sutherland is the Daily Mail Associate City Editor