Brown's African Marshall Plan

4.13.11pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 3rd Jun 2005

Gordon Brown today has called for a "modern Marshall Plan" for Africa that would include 100% debt relief and an international finance facility for immunisation.

Obviously I am fully supportive of the Chancellor's plan and indeed throughout the General Election at every hustings praised the work he and Tony Blair have done on trying to cancel debt and end world poverty.

He has also promised to write off the £500,000 VAT bill from staging the Live 8 music event.

Mr Brown said there was no justification for Africa to be weighed down by debts from 20 or 30 years ago and he proposed erasing all debts African countries owed to multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Mr Brown also proposed boosting direct aid payments, selling bonds on the international market to fund immunisation programmes for malaria and HIV/Aids and eliminating trade subsidies in rich countries that make it difficult for African nations to compete in world markets.