Christian Aid has welcomed Gordon Brown’s pledge of £8.5 billion to help fund primary education in developing countries, as the British Chancellor has promised to spend the money over the next ten years. The funding is more than four times the amount the UK government spent in the previous decade.

|TOP|Christian Aid director Dr Daleep Mukarji said: “We are delighted – this is great news for children in the developing world and we welcome this bold step. This will go a long way to deliver the United Nations’ goal of education for all by 2015.”

Mr Brown challenged other wealthy countries, particularly part of the G8- to make similar contributions and meet the estimated 100 billion US dollars cost of global primary education.

“In 2005, Make Poverty History forced governments to make promises on aid,” the chancellor said. “Now, in 2006 it is time for us to keep our promises. None is more important than the Millennium Development Goal that by 2015 every one of the world’s children is able to go to school.”

At the G8 summit in Gleneagles last year, the leaders of the world’s eight richest nations promised a doubling of aid to Africa by 2010, which is worth £14.3 billion.

|AD|Christian Aid’s Dr Mukarji urged the chancellor and the other G8 finance ministers to keep all the promises made at the summit.

In January Gordon Brown had written in The Guardian explaining how he wished to propose a post-Gleneagles agenda with Finance Ministers in Moscow. He stressed that in order to fulfil the G8 summit, Britain wanted to see full debt relief for 67 of the world’s poorest countries, not just 38. It was hoped in this conference, the final movement of cancelling the debts of the earlier 18 countries could finally be carried out.

In February, G8 Ministers met at Moscow for the first time since Gleneagles last year, hoping to further the achievements reached at G8. These achievements included the decision to cancel debts owed to the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank of 18 of the world’s poorest countries.

However, the Ministers remained uncommitted to achieving real progress regarding international debt relief. According to Jubilee Debt Campaign, there was “little sign” shown at the meeting that Finance Ministers want to see an end to the debt crisis in the world’s poorest countries. G8 Finance Ministers have been accused for its lack of progress in fulfilling the goals set out at Gleneagles to cancel the world’s poorest countries’ debt.

Christian Aid stated that they “welcome the promise by G8 leaders,” but are determined to “keep up the pressure on the G8 leaders to ensure that their promise is turned into reality.”