Taipei, June 18 (CNA) Jeffrey D. Sachs, a world-renowned American economics professor and innovative educator, was named as the winner of the fifth Tang Prize in Sustainable Development on Saturday.

Sachs, a global leader in sustainable development, was recognized for "leading transdisciplinary sustainability science and creating the multilateral movement for its applications from village to nation and to the world," according to the award citation released by the Tang Prize Foundation.

Twice named among Time magazine's 100 most influential world leaders, Sachs serves as director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the school's highest academic rank of University Professor.

The 67-year-old professor is also president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a Sustainable Development Goals Advocate for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, and co-founder and director of the Millennium Promise Alliance.

Sachs, who is from Detroit, Michigan, is widely recognized for his bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges such as extreme poverty, human-induced climate change, international debt and financial crises, national economic reforms, and the control of pandemics and epidemics.

When addressing complex issues related to global sustainable development, he combined the fields of global economics, public health, equity and sustainability to pioneer a multidisciplinary approach to solving these problems, transforming sustainable development into an integrated field of study and practice, according to the foundation.

"His scholarship, advice to world leaders, educational innovation, and efforts in the global advocacy and realization of sustainable development have proven him to be a true leader of great vision, of profound influence, and imbued with deep humanistic concern," the foundation said.

In a recorded video, Sachs said he is thrilled to be a Tang Prize laurate and is inspired by the talent and leadership of other Tang Prize recipients.

"When I look at the contributions of the fellow recipients over the years, it of course makes me humble about whatever I can do and it also helps me to explain to the world how much we can learn, know, and help to improve the world through knowledge," Sachs said.

Sachs' large body of published work includes New York Times bestsellers, "The End of Poverty" (2005), "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet" (2008), and "The Price of Civilization" (2011).

He was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global award for environmental leadership.

In 2021, Sachs was awarded the TÜBA Academy Prize by the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Legion of Honor by France, and the Order of the Cross by Estonia.

He holds 38 honorary doctorates, including those that were awarded by Macau University of Science and Technology, University of Siena in Italy, and Amrita University in Kerala, India.

The Tang Prize is a biennial award established in 2012 by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), chairman of the Ruentex Group, to honor people who have made prominent contributions in four categories -- sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, sinology, and rule of law.

The winners in each category share a cash award of NT$40 million (US$1.34 million) and NT$10 million in research funding.

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland was the winner of the first Tang Prize in Sustainable Development in 2014, and American physicist and former commissioner of the California Energy Commission, Arthur H. Rosenfeld won the second one in 2016.

James Hansen, director of the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of Columbia University's Earth Institute, shared the 2018 award with Veerabhadran Ramanathan, director of the Center for Clouds, Chemistry and Climate at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

World renowned British primatologist, ethologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall was the winner of the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development in 2020.

(By William Yen)