Africa's debt crisis is the single biggest obstacle to the continent's development and to the fight against HIV/AIDS. It represents a crippling burden that undermines economic and social progress. African countries spend almost $15 billion each year repaying debts to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other creditors. Servicing these debts diverts money directly from spending on health care, education and other important needs. While African countries struggle to cope with the devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS crisis, they are currently forced to spend more money on debt repayments than on health care for their people. Africa Action emphasizes that Africa's debts are illegitimate, based on the circumstances under which these debts were incurred as well as the harmful effects they continue to have on the continent's development: The illegitimacy of the debt is based on the following facts:

1. Much of Africa's debt was contracted by repressive despotic regimes and used contrary to the interests of the nation and its people. These debts are considered illegitimate "odious debts", which is an established legal principle. In many African countries, debt was incurred by these unrepresentative regimes during the era of Cold War patronage, when loans were made to corrupt leaders who used the money for their own personal gain and to strengthen the hold of their regime over the country's people, often with the full knowledge and support of lenders like the U.S. government and the World Bank and IMF. For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, dictator Mobutu Sese-Seko received billions of dollars in loans throughout the Cold War, even though it was well known that this money was being diverted into his Swiss bank accounts. The people of the DRC should not now have to continue to pay back billions of dollars for loans from which they saw no benefit.

2. In many African countries, debts have swelled over time because of the devaluation of African currencies, high interest rates and other conditions imposed by creditor governments and banks. These debts are also illegitimate, since the original principal has already been repaid many times over. For example, under previous military dictatorships, Nigeria originally borrowed $5 billion from foreign creditors. It has so far repaid over $16 billion, yet it still owes $32 billion on that same debt.

3. Debts contracted and used for improperly designed projects and programs are illegitimate. There is heavy responsibility on creditors here, particularly on the World Bank for its failed development projects.

4. Debts that cannot be serviced without impoverishing a country's people are illegitimate. This is more often termed "immoral debt". As the late former President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, said: "Must we starve our children to pay our debts?"

5. Africa Action stands with African activists and advocacy groups who reject the notion of an African "debt" to the U.S. and European countries after centuries of exploitation and plunder. In this context, all of Africa's debts must be considered illegitimate. The real question is, "Who owes whom?" Africa Action joins with civil society groups from throughout the global South who maintain that the countries of the South are in fact creditors of an historical, social and ecological debt that wealthy Northern countries refuse to recognize.