Rock Group U2 frontman Bono has called for greater medical investment to help the world's poor at the launch of a new blueprint for global health policy. The rock legend urged governments to work together to make low-cost medicines more accessible to developing countries. His call coincided with the publication of a report which says a rise in investment for the Third World would not only save millions of lives but also boost the global economy.

Economics and health experts said increasing medical spending by 66 billion (£44 billion) a year by 2015-2020 would generate at least 360 billion (£240 billion) annually through the increased productivity that good health brought.

The report by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health proposes a new "health pact" between donor and developing countries. Half the extra cash would come from international development assistance, with Third World countries providing the other half by changing their budgets. Spending would target the main illnesses of poverty, such as malaria, tuberculosis, Aids and childhood diseases. The report said: "With bold decisions in 2002, the world could initiate a partnership between rich and poor of unrivalled significance, offering the gift of life itself to millions of the world's dispossessed and proving to all doubters that globalisation can indeed work to the benefit of all humankind."

It said that instead of health improving as a result of economic growth, as is widely accepted, improved health was, in fact, a requirement for economic development in poor countries. Bono was joined by International Development Secretary Clare Short and Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director General of the World Health Organisation, at the launch of the report in central London.