Anglican Communion News Service

Open invitation from Njongonkulu Ndungane,
Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, to James Wolfenson, President of the World Bank

30th March 2001

I have just returned from a visit to Northern Mozambique where I witnessed soul-searing poverty and its diabolical impact on a community ravaged by colonialism, war and floods.

As a Commissioner of the National Poverty Hearings in South Africa during 1998 and a Patron of the Jubilee 2000 movement I have never come across poverty so pervasive. It is a level of poverty which adds tremendous impetus and meaning to the Jubilee 2000 call for reparations to be made by those who have stripped Africa of its resources, its dignity and its ability to help itself.

As a handful of children are taught under trees and people die of hunger, Northern Mozambique cries out for the urgent attention of those responsible for addressing the imbalances that threaten global stability. To this end I invite James Wolfenson, President of the World Bank, to accompany me on a visit to the region where he can see for himself the urgent need - both moral and economic - for total and unconditional cancellation of Mozambique's debt.