Britain announced Commonwealth education fund

Britain has announced plans for a multi-million-dollar fund to ensure every child in the Commonwealth countries receives a basic education.

The move was announced by the chancellor of the exchequer , Gordon Brown, at an international conference in London on child poverty.

Mr Brown said the fund would be established next year to honour the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth. Financial details will be given in the government's budget statement next month. He said the aim would be to target the seventy-five million Commonwealth children without any primary education.

The former South African president, Nelson Mandela, had earlier addressed the meeting by video-link.

He called for children to be put at the centre of the world agenda so that thirty-thousand children worldwide did not go on dying needlessly every day. Targets have already been set for 2015, by when all children should get at least primary education, and infant mortality should be reduced by two thirds.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service