Ramadhani Fufumba is a peasant farmer in Tanzania, but he is using the latest technology as he tries to supplement his meagre income in this beautiful but extremely poor part of the world. He is taking part in a project run by Sokoine Agricultural University to improve farming techniques in the local area, thereby increasing production and boosting incomes.

He farms five acres, where he grows subsistence crops such as rice and maize, and he has a few goats and chickens. But as he lives in one of the most productive fruit-growing areas of east Africa he is also keen to make the most of his crop of oranges, bananas, coconut, pineapples and other fruit. The trouble is that once the crops like oranges and bananas have ripened, they will rot unless he can find enough buyers for his produce.

Just recently, however, he has branched into the latest technology with the help of Christian Aid and its local partners, and he now uses solar trays to produce dried fruit which can be sold all the year round.

He says: "I wash the ripe fruit in clean water and then I peel and chop it. I put it into solar trays and it takes only three days in this equatorial sun to produce dried fruit for the market."

The scheme is only in its infancy, but he reckons he will increase his annual income by about 4 per cent. However, the extra money is immediately swallowed up by school fees for his five children, in a country where roughly a third of the children do not go to school because their parents cannot afford the fees.

The same applies to one of his neighbours in a village nearby. Mohamed Gonza operates a small fish farm, with stock he was given by Christian Aid and its local partners. He uses the proceeds to supplement the income from his small holding where he has three goats and seven chickens, and where he grows rice, maize, spices, coconuts, cinnamon and coffee. He, too, uses the extra money to pay for primary school fees, otherwise his children would have to stay at home.

Enrolment in primary schools here has fallen from 93 per cent in 1980 to 67 per cent in 1995. Some 40 per cent of children between the ages of 10 and 14 are forced to work due to economic hardship, and girls are hardest hit. They are expected to stay at home and do household chores.

The health statistics are equally depressing. In Tanzania, where the average life expectancy is only 50 years, some 58 per cent of the population do not have access to healthcare. For those who do, this often involves a long walk, with no guarantee at the end that the hospital or clinic they attend will have adequate, or any, medical supplies. Many children die from preventable but fatal water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea. Only 38 per cent of the population have access to safe water.

Unfortunately, the country does not have enough money to adequately fund its health, education and other services because it is paying back vast sums to Western creditors.

SOME of these international debts are not the fault of the Tanzanians alone. For example, in the 1970s the World Bank lent Tanzania $45 million to develop a cashew nut industry, but the bank overestimated cashew nut production, and the project never took off properly. Few of the plants were fully operational, and now most are dormant. Nevertheless, Tanzania now owes the World Bank around $2.5 billion.

In the past two years Christian Aid and other organisations and individuals around the world have backed Jubilee 2000, an international campaign for the cancellation of unpayable debts owed by some of the world's poorest countries, including Tanzania, as an appropriate way of celebrating the new millennium.

The campaign has had some success, and both the US and Britain agreed in principle to write off significant portions of the debts, provided the poorest countries use the savings to tackle poverty on their doorsteps. However, some of these countries, including Tanzania, claim that this debt relief is still insufficient. The country has a total debt of $6.5 billion, and this year it will pay more than $230 million to service that debt, which is more than the government spends on health or education.

Campaigners are maintaining the pressure to make sure Western leaders keep international debt relief high on their agenda. They are hopeful that further significant announcements will be made following the Japanese summit, but veteran development workers who have seen so many promising initiatives devalued by the small print are not holding their breath.

Meanwhile ordinary Tanzanians like Ramahda Fufumba, the fruit farmer, Mohamed Gonza, the fish-pond owner and many others are still working hard to try to provide education and other services for their families which their government cannot afford because of the crippling burden of international debt which still hangs around its neck.

Sadly, however commendable their efforts are to help themselves, they are likely to remain trapped in a cycle of poverty unless Western governments take further steps to write off the international debts of Tanzania and other poor countries, and give them the opportunity to make a fresh start.

Alf McCreary is a Belfast-based journalist