The chancellor has called for an increase in the international aid effort and the end to corruption in the developing world in order to dramatically reduce famine.

Ahead of Thursday's launch of an international finance facility, Gordon Brown said aid too often did not get through to those most in need.

Writing in the Guardian, he put current fears over the state of the economy to one side and pressed his international counterparts for a renewed effort to reduce poverty and starvation.

"In financial terms, the need is as pressing as it is profound. To halve poverty, we must double aid," he writes.

"To place all school-aged children into school will require a fifth of the additional $50 billion.

"To begin to win the battle for global health - including the fight against Aids - demands at least an additional $12 billion."

But he warned that additional aid must be accompanied by "tough conditionality".

"Too often aid, donated for the best reasons, has brought the worst results: cash that lines the pockets of corrupt elites rather than food that lines the stomachs of the starving," he said.

"Too often the world has seen aid as recompense for the injuries of the past and not, as it must become, investment in our shared future."

The chancellor added that the developing world must ensure they achieve "corruption-free regimes that pursue stable, equitable and sustainable economic growth, and agree to international monitoring of their poverty reduction plans".

Brown is joined by international development secretary Clare Short in launching the international finance facility.