Rock starsBob Geldof and Bono broadly welcomed a pledge on Friday by the G8 nations to double aid to Africa.
"Six hundred thousand people will be alive to remember this G8 in Gleneagles who would have lost their lives to a mosquito bite," Bono said, referring to the difference he thought the extra aid would make to fighting malaria.
"If an Irish rock star can quote Churchill, this is not the end of extreme poverty, but it is the beginning of the end," the U2 singer said at the end of the G8 summit in Scotland.
Geldof, who organised this month's Live 8 concerts to put pressure on the world's most industrialised nations, said the summit was a "qualified triumph".
He gave the leaders 10 marks out of 10 for their pledges on aid and eight out of 10 for debt relief.
"A great justice has been done," he said. "We are beginning to see the lives of the poor of Africa determined not by charity but by justice." The leaders of Britain, the US, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia said on Friday that by 2010 they would spend about $25 billion more a year on Africa, where poverty claims a child's life every 10 seconds.
They also pledged, with other donors, to roughly double total aid for all developing countries, boosting it by about $50 billion a year by 2010.
They urged people who watched the Live 8 concerts and supported the Make Poverty History coalition of charities, churches and other groups to make sure the leaders stuck to their pledges.
"The world spoke out and the politicians listened," Bono said. "Now, if the world keeps an eye out, they will keep their promises."
Dr Kumi Naidoo, chairman of the Global Call To Action Against Poverty said 50,000 people died unnecessarily each day.
"If the leaders actually implement today's announcement in an urgent manner, we estimate that by 2010 this will fall to around 37,000." And he declared: "The promise to deliver by 2010 is like waiting five years before responding to the tsunami.
"Despite constant calls from people worldwide for trade justice it is desperately disappointing that G8 leaders failed to act properly on this issue."
The debt deal was "a small belated step" in the right direction.
He added: "The people have roared but the G8 has whispered."
But Geldof countered: "When did 10 million people alive become a whisper. When were 10 million lives ever a whisper? It's a disgrace to suggest anything other than that. Please - perspective."