This statement is based on a keynote speech made at a conference preceding the meeting of the the heads of government of commonwealth countries, on Tuesday 21 October 1997.

A partnership of nations around the globe is required to eradicate poverty, according to the the Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town.

Delivering a keynote address to a conference in Edinburgh, organised by the Royal African Society in Scotland to precede the heads of Commonwealth government meeting and associated with the Jubilee 2000 campaign, Archbishop Ndungane said that poverty was too big an issue to be tackled by a divided community.

"We require the participation of all to ensure its eradication - particularly governments like those of the Commonwealth, representatives, of which will soon be meeting," he said.

The issue needed to be tackled on a practical level, and not just at an academic level, he said. Poverty was not inevitable. He pointed out that this year's UN Human Development Report had made this clear.

"The report points out that over the past three decades a dozen or more developing countries have shown that it is possible to eliminate absolute poverty. A century and a half ago the world marshalled its resources and launched a successful campaign against slavery. In our own times, moral and righteous people around the globe campaigned for the end of apartheid and were successful," he said.

It was now time to harness all available resources to bring an end to poverty.

Noting that there were 800 days to go until the year 2000 dawned, Archbishop Ndungane urged developed countries to write off the debts of developing countries. They should also adopt specific programmes to allow poor countries greater access to technology, resources and capital. He praised the World Bank for putting a programme in place to cancel Mozambique's debt.

The Primate also spoke out against foreign loans being granted to any countries that wished to expand their military capacity or purchase arms. The Archbishop proposed the establishment of an international mediation council to negotiate the repudiation of debts of developing countries. Such a Council would also monitor new loans to countries, which would have to adhere to nine principles in order to qualify for the finance. These included the principle that no debt be incurred for the purposes of militarism, or to maintain oppressive governments that violated fundamental human rights.

Archbishop Ndungane, an outspoken critic of governments - including South Africa - that enlarged their military capacity without just and sufficient cause, said another principle that the proposed council should adopt would be to cease all loans if a country expanded its armed services or military capacity to the detriment of its people.

He proposed that the Council should comprise of an independent international body, a similar relevant regional body, the International Monetary Fund and/or the World Bank, and the country concerned. The other seven principles that should be applied by the body, in an endeavour to ensure that countries never again incurred debts that they were unable to service - as was now the case in developing countries - were:

• No country should be permitted to borrow more than a fixed percentage of its GNP without first going to its people, for example in a referendum, to obtain their approval.
• Preference should be given to making loans to countries which have illustrated good stewardship in the use of their resources and in the involvement of their own people in their socio-economic development and the creative involvement of foreign investors.
• Preference should be given to countries that need loans for health, education, social services, infrastructural development and the like. *The rape of the environment, or the denial of human rights, by any country should disqualify it from receiving loans.
• A country which has shown a commitment to democratic government and regular free elections should receive preferential treatment in receiving loans.
• Countries receiving loans from any international financial institution or commercial bank should submit themselves to a strict monitoring and accountability process so that if it is found that debt relief is being used for military or other purposes that do not advance the socio-economic development of people, the loans be suspended.
• This monitoring process must ensure that where a debt has been cancelled, any provision that would have been made to service the loan had it not been cancelled, must be redeployed for the development of people and infrastructure.

Developing countries must respond in a disciplined way to this initiative by giving up the trappings and reality of military power that comes with the purchase of arms; they must also turn away from the symbols of power and wealth such as new palaces and huge new state houses. There were already sufficient such symbols in all countries without more having to be acquired, Archbishop Ndungane said.