UK pledges £20m in aid for Unicef

The G8 vowed to cut third world debts at the 2005 meeting

The UK is to give £20m to UN children's fund Unicef to help set up emergency education schemes in countries hit by war and natural disasters.

Chancellor Gordon Brown will announce the move in Gleneagles at a meeting to discuss the progress of promises made by world leaders at the 2005 G8 summit.

Among the promises made by the heads of the eight richest nations was to lift annual global aid to £25.3bn by 2010.

The G8 also vowed to wipe out debts for some of the world's poorest countries.

Among other pledges made by the eight world leaders, including Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush, was a provide universal access to HIV medicines in Africa within five years.

The G8 meeting at the luxury Perthshire resort took place days after a series of Live 8 concerts around the world which led a rallying call to make poverty history.

Small scale

However, the current meeting is a much smaller affair, being billed as Gleneagles In A Tent.

We've got a long way to go before we really get the financing to achieve the millennium development goals Chris Bain, Cafod

Rather than playing host to the heads of some of the world's leading industrial nations, the event will be hosted by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland Alan McDonald and Scotland's leading Catholic Cardinal Keith O'Brien.

As well as Gordon Brown, former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan, and the government's international development secretary Hilary Benn are among those set to attend the meeting.

Charities have warned that unless drastic action is taken, the G8 will fail to fulfil the promises made at the 2005 meeting.

Broken promises?

Mr Benn also conceded that while the UK has kept its promise to increase global aid spending, many nations had failed to keep their end of the bargain.

"The figures are disappointing although we need to recognise that the total in 2005 was the largest ever and 2006 figures are still about £20bn up on 2004," he told the BBC.

Aid agency Cafod agreed the latest figures on aid were "disappointing", adding that some countries had actually cut funding.

"The one bright spark in this is that the British government has achieved its promises and increased its aid," said Cafod director Chris Bain.

"But for the rest - for example the US decreasing by a fifth and Italy a 10th - we've got a long way to go before we really get the financing to achieve the millennium development goals."