Last month, G8 leaders meeting in London agreed to cancel the debts of 18 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). This debt totalled $40 billion ( US ) and its cancellation would enable poor countries to spend more money on health-care, education and urgently needed social programmes aimed at eradicating poverty.

Some critics have said this debt forgiveness has not gone far enough since many other poor countries were excluded, but at least it is a start in the right direction. It shows that G8 leaders are listening to their people, many of whom are fed up with so much poverty in a world marked by so much affluence.

Several African countries are among those benefiting from debt cancellation. Africa is ravaged by poverty, AIDS, inadequate infrastructure, civil wars and corruption. It is no secret that African leaders themselves have stolen billions of dollars creamed from Africa 's natural resources as well as aid packages.

Consequently, the rich governments of the North particularly are hesitant to approve large aid packages for Africa . However, as George Gelber – head of public policy at CAFOD, the British Catholic developmental organisation - writes, “Make no mistake; aid works, debt relief works and fair trade works” ( The Tablet , June 4).

If, therefore, G8 leaders are really serious about eradicating poverty in Africa , their special meeting at Gleneagles , Scotland , which ended last Friday, should have produced concrete resolutions to this effect.

In today's gospel Jesus quotes Isaiah who says, “ They will listen and listen again, but not understand, see and see again, but not perceive. ” Today's gospel challenges G8 leaders to “ understand ” and “ perceive ” that financial aid by itself will not solve Africa's problems nor those of other HIPCs.

ENDING UNJUST SUBSIDIES

Aid is a two-way street: benefiting countries must put their houses in order; governments must be less corrupt and their people must demand accountability.

On the other hand, trade relationships between rich and poor countries must be more equitable and just. If radical changes are not made in trade arrangements then it is only a matter of time before Africa becomes poor again.

In his address to the UN Council on Debt Reduction, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, remarked: “It must be acknowledged that the actual sums involved here [by donor countries] are modest compared with the vast military expenditure throughout the world and the subsidies that the industrialised countries pay to sectors of their own economies, when those very subsidies are responsible for severe distortions in the world's poorest countries.”

The Archbishop implies that poor countries like those of Africa cannot hope to get out of the poverty trap when the world spends $1000 billion (US) annually on arms but only $50 billion (US) a year on aid.

Five years ago the UN General Assembly adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which included eradicating hunger, promoting universal primary education and gender equality, and combating HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases. The same G8 leaders pledged to reduce poverty by half by 2015. Over one billion people are waiting for this relief, millions of them in Africa alone.

Let us hope that the citizens of G8 countries will hold their leaders accountable for the promises they have made to Africa and other nations. May they remind them of the burning concern of the protesters gathered outside the G8 summit at Gleneagles – “Make poverty history!”