Eradication of extreme poverty could actually happen in our lifetime…

Brown to wipe debt for world’s poorest
“CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown today pledged a new deal for the third world, by doubling aid and wiping out debt owed by the poorest nations.

The Chancellor was set to describe 2005 as a “make or break year for development” as he set out his ideas for how Britain’s forthcoming presidencies of the EU and G8 should be judged.

Mr Brown will identify the priorities for Britain’s presidencies as:

• A new financial package for the developing world, centred on the UK-designed International Finance Facility (IFF), which would raise aid from donor countries from £25.7 billion to £51.4 billion.

• That would be coupled with the elimination of outstanding debt owed by the poorest countries to lending countries, and to institutions like the World Bank, IMF and African Development Bank.

• The final element of the package would be persuading other major industrialised countries to match the UK’s commitment to a timetable to spend 0.7{a9f0d31f6175b3e4775e11a66c07db268fb74408d6095f6b46eeec420c0e9f62} of their national income on overseas development assistance: the UK’s timetable is 2013 on current progress, or 2009 if the IFF comes into effect.

• To agree an Advance Purchase Scheme for potential future malaria and AIDS vaccines – which would work by the UK and other countries making a legally-binding commitment to purchase millions of courses of an AIDS vaccine as soon as one becomes available, creating a ready-made market for the vaccine to induce the world’s drugs companies to increase their research.

Next week he will visit the American administration, the IMF and the World Bank to build international support for these goals for international justice.”