The British Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, and Mr Nelson Mandela yesterday opened an international conference aimed at combating child poverty as a fund was started to give millions of young people a chance of primary education.
Mr Brown unveiled the government-backed Queen's Golden Jubilee Year Fund, part of a package of measures designed to overcome child poverty in the developing world.
The Chancellor's proposals, announced to the crowded conference in London, included a package to speed the supply of medicines and vaccinations to the millions of children facing death from diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria.
The government initiatives were announced at the start of the international conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster. The aim is to develop an agenda to meet the 2015 international development targets on poverty.
Mr Mandela, South Africa's former president, who was introduced by his wife and coleader of the Global Movement for Children, Ms Graca Machel, spoke to the conference by a video link-up.
He said: "We must move children to the centre of the world agenda."
The conference brought together representatives of the UN, the IMF and the World Bank, with the governments of developed and developing countries, charity organisations, faith leaders and business.
The Italian Prime Minister, Mr Giuliano Amato, also joined the delegates via video link-up.
The Jubilee Fund will aim to help 75 million children in Commonwealth countries who currently lack a basic education.
It will target in particular the disparity between education for boys and that for girls in those countries.
Tax credits for research and development of drugs to tackle TB, AIDS and malaria were also announced.
Tax relief will be offered for donations of drugs to developing countries by pharmaceutical countries, and there will also be a new global fund to purchase vaccines against deadly diseases. Mr Brown, who was joined on the podium by the International Development Secretary, Ms Clare Short, and Ms Machel, said: "Millions of world children live on a knife-edge of existence.
"Many are crippled by poverty and war.
"This is both an affront and a challenge. In an era of prosperity, more than ever the world's children must become our cause," Mr Brown added.