In 1998, Wangari Maathai became the co-chair of the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign, a campaign formed out of Jubilee 2000 Coalition. The campaign is launched to seek out the cancellation of foreign debts by poor countries of Africa by year 2000.

Many poor government would take on huge loans for specific project but mismanagement and embezzlement resulted in the projects not being completed. The people who suffered the most are the people of the country.

In her acceptance speech at the 1991 Laureate of the Africa Prize Leadership, Wangari Maathai questioned why the poor should be the one suffering the consequences of poor governance.The poor and hungry masses should not be forced to repay these loans that they did not benefit from and were not the one responsible for incurring the debts. They are the victims of poor governance. The repayment burdened them severely and they are driven into increasing poverty. 

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