African finance ministers have criticised the World Bank's debt relief programme for failing to keep step with goals to reduce poverty in some of the poorest African countries. At the end of a three-day UN-hosted meeting, the finance ministers called for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative to be brought in line with the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which seek to halve poverty levels by 2015. African governments want the World Bank and donor countries to move beyond HIPC to offer greater debt relief and to extend relief to non-HIPC countries.