The initiative came from the Sudwing Institute, an organization of German civil society. At the same time that it called for debt cancellation it also asked that an Emergency Fund be created to cushion the effects of the disaster, noting that "the foreign debt has paralyzed the possibilities of economic development for these two countries."
La iniciativa nació en un organismo de la sociedad civil alemana, el Instituto Sudwing. Pidiendo que la deuda fuera perdonada y se creara un Fondo de Emergencia para paliar los efectos del desastre, recordaban que "la deuda externa tiene paralizadas las posibilidades de desarrollo económico de estos dos países" aún antes del paralizante desastre.