Chancellor recruits Mandela in war on poverty
Gordon Brown has met former South African President Nelson Mandela at the end of his six-day tour of Africa
The Chancellor confirmed that Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mr Mandela will visit London in February to urge members of the G8 group of richest nations to do more to tackle poverty across the African continent.
Mr Brown is also set to meet current South African President, Thabo Mbeki before returning home and is expected to announce proposals to boost trade in poor countries.
It is anticipated that the Chancellor will make the announcement after talks that are taking place in Cape Town on Sunday, between the Commission for Africa and 19 African finance ministers.
Mr Brown has used his tour of four African countries to press the G8 group to ease the debt burden on the continent’s developing nations by raising an additional $50bn (£26.7m) a year.
Britain has already vowed to pay 10 per cent of the foreign debt shouldered by the world’s poorest nations under the Chancellor’s self-styled “Marshall plan”.
This week, Mr Brown put the pledge into practice by signing agreements with Mozambique and Tanzania and has promised similar deals for 70 other developing countries.
Speaking yesterday in the Mozambique capital, Maputo, the Chancellor said: “It is so important that the numbers of people living in poverty in this country have fallen as a result of more investment in education, health and poverty programmes and they should continue to fall.”
