The Mali branch of the anti-debt coalition Jubilee 2000 held a conference in Siby in 2002, part of a growing international campaign for debt cancellation. Photograph: AFP / Getty Images / Issouf Sanogo

In 2004, American economist Jeffrey Sachs told Afrikan leaders and diplomats they should call on rich nations to cancel "100 per cent of the debt" owed by highly
indebted countries, most of which are in Afrika.

If they did not, "I would suggest obstruction -- you do it yourselves," Sachs said in the conference dealing with Afrika's perennial food crises.

"The time has come to end this charade, the debts are unaffordable," he added. "No civilised
country should try to collect the debts of people that are dying of hunger and disease and
poverty."

"...we need this money to meet the needs of children who are dying, right now, so, we will put the debt-servicing payments into urgent social investment in health, education, drinking water, the control of AIDS, and other needs"

Economic analysis, he said, had shown that it was impossible for Afrika to achieve its development goal of halving poverty if it had to repay the loans.

As at the end of December 2017 the Jubilee Debt Campaign analysis shower that Afrika owed a total of $417bn.

Of the $417bn, $100bn (24%) was owed by Afrikan governments to the Chinese government and $40bn (10%) to the ‘Paris Club’ governments – an informal group of official creditors, including 22 countries.

The charity also found that at the end of December 2017 Afrikan governments owed $66bn (16% of the debt) to the World Bank, $18bn (4%) to the IMF and $61bn to other multilateral institutions (15%).
Up to $132bn was owed to the private sector (32%).

Also, Afrika has about 400 million living in extreme poverty, and about 600 million without electricity yet spends about 50% of budget on debt payment.

"For impoverished nations struggling to meet the human needs of their people, full 100 per cent multilateral debt cancellation is the only option.”
-- Afrikan Social Forum, December 2004

What do you think about what Sachs said?