Blair promises £1bn aid for Africa in good governance deal

Tony Blair underlined his determination yesterday to make Africa a priority at the G8 summit when he announced British aid to the continent would rise to £1bn a year by 2006.

As he prepared to fly to the heads of government meeting, which opens in Canada today, the Prime Minister said bilateral aid would rise by £368m from its present £632m a year.

Current levels of British bilateral aid to Africa are nearly double the £333m a year spent in 1997 and the fresh pledge means they will be three times the level under the last Tory government.

The announcement of the extra money for the Department for International Development is the first glimpse of the Chancellor's comprehensive spending review due next month. Downing Street said yesterday that Mr Blair was determined that "we put our money where our mouth is" after his meeting with leading development charities at No 10.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said that the extra aid would be focused on projects in areas such as health and education under the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad).

The initiative requires African nations to institute good governance and crack down on corruption as part of a drive to make development cash more effective.

The spokesman said that the Prime Minister was committed to tackling the Aids crisis on the continent, where 20 million people suffer from the disease.

Mr Blair has said the state of Africa is a scar on the civilised world. On a visit to Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Senegal earlier this year he called for a new relationship between the developed world and the region.

Britain wanted "firm language" from the summit in Canada to hold the developed countries to their commitments to free trade at the recent World Trade Organisation round in Doha, Qatar.

Andrew Pendleton, of Christian Aid, welcomed the extra money. But he added: "Rich countries need to come up with an additional £16bn if any of their past promises, like halving the number of Africans living in absolute poverty, are to be fulfilled. And it's not just about aid. If much of Africa's debt is not cancelled, and international trade rules are not rewritten to favour poor countries in Africa, the bucket will still be leaking faster than it can be filled."