A Global Compact to End Poverty. Interview with Jeffrey Sachs
By Brian Snowdon
It is wrong that somebody’s chances in life depend so starkly not on their tal- ents or ambitions or how hard they work, but on where they were born. Those of us who believe that everyone—not just a few—should have the chance to fulfil their own potential, cannot stand by and watch Africa be left behind by the rest of the world.
Tony Blair: Speech at the Second Session of the Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, October 7, 2004.
Our generation is heir to two and a half centuries of economic progress. We can realistically envision a world without extreme poverty by the year 2025 because technological progress enables us to meet basic human needs on a global scale and to achieve a margin above basic needs unprecedented in history... Remarkably, contrary to the dark vision of Thomas Malthus, we can accomplish all this with a world population that is eight times higher than in 1750.
Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty, 2005.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. Brian Snowdon is Principal Lecturer in Economics at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
WORLD ECONOMICS • Vol. 6 • No. 4 • October–December 2005 11
Jeffrey Sachs interviewed by Brian Snowdon
INTRODUCTION
Jeffrey Sachs is one of the world’s leading economists and is internation- ally renowned for his research, especially in the fields of monetary eco- nomics and international economic development. Professor Sachs spent over twenty years at Harvard University where he became Director of the Centre for International Development and Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. In 2002, Sachs moved to Columbia University to take up the post as Director of the prestigious Earth Institute1 where he is also Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management. Currently he is a Special Advisor on the Millennium Development Goals to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and is Director of the UN Millennium Project. Previously, he has been a consultant to several international institutions including the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Development Program. During the last thirty years, he has also been an economic advisor to many governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Africa.2
In this article, I present the text of a two-hour interview conducted with Professor Sachs that provides a wide-ranging discussion relating to his work over the past thirty years on macroeconomic stabilisation, the eco- nomics of transition, and several important issues in the field of interna- tional economic development. First, I provide some background to the debate relating to Professor Sachs’s most recent work that has helped focus international attention on the growth tragedy of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This key humanitarian issue has received enormous coverage in the media throughout 2005 and has been highlighted in particular at the recent G8 meetings in Gleneagles and worldwide Live 8 Concerts in early July, and the UN World Summit in September.