According to their estimates, every dollar spent in Africa for servicing the debt translates into a 29 per cent reduction in the health budget (which, in more tragic terms, can be translated economically as follows: every $140,000 allocated to the debt service, a child dies). These figures allow us to better understand the gap that exists between the apparent economic progress, in terms of GDP per capita, registered in countries such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo and the Ivory Coast, and their poor performance in the fields of health and education.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 318