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| Sunday, 6 February 2005 |
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Mandela calls on G7 to provide 100 percent debt relief LONDON, Saturday (AFP) South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela issued a vibrant appeal Friday to Group of Seven finance ministers for 100 percent debt cancellation for Africa and a sharp increase in annual financial aid. "We need action on 100 percent debt cancellation, multilateral as well as bilateral, to remove the burdens of the past to allow people to be free," Mandela told ministers from seven of the world's richest countries, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. "Africa cannot have economic stability until you provide 100 percent debt relief and you have the ability to do that today." Mandela also insisted that development aid should not be delivered piecemeal - "not small amounts here and there, now and then ... but a doubling in aid, another 50 billion dollars each and every year until 2015." "So I urge you to act tonight, do not delay when poor people continue to suffer." The United Nations in 2000 adopted what it called Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day by 2015. |
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