'The UN estimates that 7 million children die every year through diseases that could easily be prevented by improving water supplies.'

By Andrew Chapman

Monday 16 May is World Debt Day, part of the Jubilee Debt Campaign. Here's a quick lowdown of the issues.

This year the occasion falls exactly seven years after the G8 summit in Birmingham - in seven weeks from now, the G8 returns to the UK for the first time since.

The world's poorest countries pay more than L30 million every day in debt repayments. The premise of the Jubilee Debt Campaign is that this money should be spent on healthcare and educations instead. The UN estimates that 7 million children die every year through diseases that could easily be prevented by improving water supplies - which that money could go towards.

The world's 52 poorest countries owe $375 million: the G8 summit promised to write off $100 million of this, but so far only $46 billion has actially been written off. The cost to the UK for cancelling its share of the debt owed by the 42 'Heavily Indebted Poor Countries' is only L3 per person per year over 10 years.

The campaign has a vision of what the solution should look like: cancellation of all debt by countries that can't pay it; offering grants rather than loans; and working to stop the World Bank the International Monetary Fund from attaching harmful bureaucratic conditions to debt relief.

So what can you do? Here are some suggestions:

• Petition finance ministers
• Spread the word through flyers and posters
• Join the Make Poverty History protests at the G8 summit at Edinburgh in July
• Write to the Prime Minister
• Attend a World Debt Day event
• Email Gordon Brown

• Debt: don't forget it