before the Group of Seven (g-7) summit began on June 27 in Lyon, France, there was considerable brouhaha over the world's richest countries trying to persuade the World Bank (wb) and the International Monetary Fund (imf) for a new debt relief plan in order to assist the eight to 20 poorest countries, most of them in Africa. This was the first time that the global lending institutions were attending a g-7 meeting. With this as one of the main issues in the agenda, the summit promised to be different from its predecessors. Instead, it ended with agreements on terrorism, Bosnia and economic strategy, but no solution was found for two problems which needed urgent attention