Britain has pledged £5 million of additional British food and education aid to Zimbabwe after a fundraising visit from Morgan Tsvangirai, Gordon Brown announced yesterday.

The small pledge reflects continuing scepticism among Western nations that the country’s autocratic Government has changed since Mr Tsvangirai, a former opposition activist, took office in February in a controversial power-sharing agreement with President Mugabe.

In a joint press conference with Mr Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister said: “We are prepared to respond when the Zimbabwean Government takes action which is in conformity with the long-term ambition . . . but we will continue to speak out for those who are intimidated and threatened and exploited and, indeed, against all censorship. We will continue to test the progress that is being made.”

British aid to Zimbabwe will now total £60 million this year, channelled through aid agencies rather than the Zimbabwean Government. Mr Brown warned that more help would not be given until the country improves its human rights record.

Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister, an ally of Mr Tsvangirai, said that $8 billion (£5 billion) is needed to rebuild the ravaged country after decades of Mr Mugabe’s misrule. Mr Tsvangirai has raised a fraction of that on a tour that included meetings with Barack Obama and the Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. The US President pledged $73 million in humanitarian aid and no development aid; Germany offered €25 million (£12 million).

The trip has been dogged by accusations that the former opposition leader, who has been jailed, beaten and threatened with death by the Mugabe regime, has now become its apologist.

On Saturday Mr Tsvangirai was heckled and jeered when he urged an audience of more than 1,000 expatriate Zimbabweans at Southwark Cathedral, London, to return home.

An initially sympathetic crowd turned hostile when Mr Tsvangirai said that “Zimbabweans must come home” to a country offering “peace and stability”. They used the slogan of his Movement for Democratic Change, chinja (change) to mock him, booed and shouted “Mugabe must go”. Mr Tsvangirai appeared shaken and at one point left the pulpit for two minutes.

An estimated one million Zimbabweans live in Britain, many of them with refugee status. Another three million are living in South Africa after fleeing political oppression, hyperinflation and rampant disease including HIV/Aids and a cholera epidemic.

A visit to Zimbabwe last week by Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty International, found that human rights progress since the power-sharing agreement has been “woefully slow”. “There seems to be no sense of real urgency to bring about human rights changes on the part of some government leaders,” she said, adding that “socio-economic conditions are desperate for the vast majority of Zimbabweans”.

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