University honours Brown for anti-poverty work

from The Guardian

Gordon Brown will today be given an honorary university degree in recognition of his "enormous personal" efforts to reduce third world poverty.

Academics at Newcastle University, who say they do not normally honour serving politicians, have broken with tradition for today's ceremony in which Bob Geldof, the charity campaigner, will also be honoured.

The university said that the honorary doctor of civil law degree is being given for the chancellor's "enormous personal contribution" to tackling debt in the world's poorest nations. The chancellor's proposals for a new deal between developed and developing countries formed the basis of the comprehensive package agreed at the G8 summit, held in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July 2005, to speed up Africa's progress in meeting the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

The university said that Mr Brown had made significant progress the provision of universal education and access to healthcare, anti-poverty investments and the cancellation of debts owed by the world's poorest countries.

Mr Brown will receive the honorary degree from the chancellor of Newcastle University, Lord Patten, in a ceremony at the Sage Gateshead. Newcastle University's vice-chancellor, Christopher Edwards, said: "The university is delighted that Gordon Brown has accepted our invitation to receive an honorary degree.

"Ordinarily, the university does not award honorary degrees to serving politicians, but senate has made an exception in this case because of the enormous personal contribution Gordon Brown has made to the campaign designed to increase international aid and eliminate the debt owed by the world's poorest nations."

Other contributors to the international campaign for debt relief receiving honours will include Susan George, the political economist, Benjamin William Mkapa, the former president of Tanzania, and David Golding, development co-ordinator of Make Poverty History North East.