Bono Announces £15m Poverty Effort

U2 frontman Bono's anti-poverty campaign is to officially announce on Monday a $30m (£15m) effort to pressure Republican and Democratic U.S. presidential candidates to make poverty a priority.

ONE Vote '08 will aim to get President George W. Bush's successor in the 2008 election to commit to taking concrete steps in the first 100 days to combat hunger and disease while improving access to education and water across the globe.

"If we really are going to change the mind-set of our political leaders we've got to make sure that the next person who sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue understands the global health and global poverty emergencies," said Susan McCue, president and chief executive of ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History.

ONE founder Bono sang at anti-poverty concert "Raise Your Voice Against Poverty" last week in Rostock near Heiligendamm, calling on G8 leaders for a reaffirmation of the 2005 commitment.

Bono has feared that world leaders at the G8 summit might offer too little help or may wriggle out of existing promises.

Following the announcement that the leaders have pledged to spend $60 billion (£30 billion) on the fight against Aids, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa, the rock star condemned the decision, insisting only a fraction of that sum will be spent.

He says, "I think it is deliberately the language of obfuscation. It is deliberately misleading."

Bono criticised the lack of a spending timeline which would increase costs and map out where the money was going, as well as the fact that the pledge did not apply specifically to Africa.

"We are looking for accountable language and numbers. I might be a rock star but I can count," he said.