There have been plenty of aid plans for Africa over the years. Few have made much headway toward alleviating poverty. That sorry history doesn't discourage Nicholas Stern, however.

As a senior U.K. Treasury official and policy director of the Commission for Africa, a British-sponsored advisory body, Stern is drafting an ambitious package of aid, trade and debt-relief initiatives that Prime Minister Tony Blair will promote in June when he chairs the Group of Eight meeting in Scotland. Stern traveled to South Africa last month with his boss, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who called the package a Marshall Plan for Africa.

Stern aims to build on the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development, under which African leaders have committed to making political and economic reforms in return for increased aid. He proposes to relieve debt owed by the poorest African nations to the international financial institutions by selling or revaluing IMF gold to pay off debts to the fund and having wealthy countries assume African debt owed to the World Bank. He is also arguing for the creation of an international finance facility that would securitize future aid commitments from donor nations, thus generating up to $50 billion a year in additional funds for poor countries.

The U.S. Treasury has opposed the facility as excessive and incompatible with U.S. budgetary laws. Blair's relationship with George W. Bush will be put to the test as he attempts to persuade the president to override those objections.

Stern, a former World Bank chief economist, says the time is ripe to capitalize on positive developments in Africa by sharply increasing aid. "The past few years have seen strong moves in a positive direction in many parts of Africa," he says. "There's more to support. Resources will be more effective."