Archbishop Ndungane of the Anglican Church has responded to announcements that the G8 industrialised nations will look to erase more than R265 billion (£20 million) of Africa’s debts.

Ndungane was speaking from London, where he is preparing to deliver a seminar on economic justice at the London School of Economics tomorrow.

The Archbishop said, "It is very encouraging to see this progress after all our years of campaigning for debt relief."

Jubilee 2000 – an international organisation dedicated to pressing for the cancellation of debts owed by the poorest developing nations to the world’s richest countries – appointed Archbishop Ndungane as a patron in 1998.

Since filling his position with Jubilee 2000, the Archbishop has spent a lot of time promoting the cancellation of the debts. He said, "These debts are literally unpayable. The debtor countries will never be able to repay them despite outlaying significant funds every year - funds that are urgently needed for basic human requirements including clean water, food, shelter and basic education. Debt creates a cycle of poverty that is inescapable."

He continued, "I am hoping that this latest write-off of debt will pave the way for even more progress and improvements as the G-8 countries work together. Our objective is a clean slate - a total cancellation of odious and unpayable debts owed by African countries. This will enable the governments of these developing countries to determine priorities for the sustainable livelihoods of all people living in their countries. They will now be able to channel this money into much-needed human development programmes.

"I am also hoping that the G-8 governments will not be prescriptive to African governments as to how and how not to use the money that has been freed up. Of course we recognise that developing countries must use this money responsibly in caring for their own people and of course the onus is on them to put the money to good use and maintain proper fiscal discipline, but you cannot give with one hand while taking back with another."

Archbishop Ndungane stressed that "this debt-forgiveness needs to go hand-in-hand with fair trade practices in future. Africa is not holding out a begging bowl here. All we are asking for is trade justice because, in the long run, it is not aid but equitable trade practices which places us on an equal footing with so-called first world countries."

He also applauded Blair’s promotion of climate change as one of the main issues of discussion for next month’s Scotland meeting of the G8: "A failure to pay attention to pressing environmental factors now, may lead to an uncontrollable spiral of global events that will make all this talk of debt-relief and fair trade merely academic in the next decade or two."

The Archbishop concluded, "This significant debt write-off will certainly encourage us to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving world poverty by 2015," said Archbishop Ndungane, "but there is still a long road to travel in our quest for a world where success is measured in quality of life and not quantity of dollars."