West must write off African debt urgently, warns Brown

Gordon Brown has warned that the West may never be forgiven for not offering African countries urgent relief during the worst debt crisis in a generation.

- KATE DEVLIN

The former prime minister’s rallying call comes as a poll shows nearly half of Britons think the UK should wipe the debts of lower-income countries so the money can be used to fund hospitals, schools and tackle the climate crisis.

It follows a report that shows many African countries spent more on debt payments than on health or education last year. Mr Brown said the findings showed the urgent need for action. “The scale of this inequality between Africans and the rest of the world is so great that I am not sure the world will ever forgive us for failing to deliver urgent debt restructuring,” he writes in a foreword to the Christian Aid report.

The study found that 34 African countries spent more on external debt payments than they did on health or education last year.