From Prof Jeffrey D. Sachs.

Sir, Armeane Choksi (Letters, March 28) makes perfectly clear why Paul Wolfowitz, or any other candidate, should not be voted as president of the World Bank before answering several basic questions in public. Mr Choksi mocks the Millennium Development Goals as "feel- good" goals, and derides the role of official development assistance as "tried and failed". Many Washington neo-cons certainly agree. Mr Wolfowitz might agree as well. The world has a right to know, and before a vote.

Mr Choksi ignores a certain basic fact. The world community has agreed to these goals and to the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product in official development assistance. The US has signed on. The fact that the Bush administration has refused to follow through on those commitments should make the rest of the world wary of swallowing a US appointment without firm commitments to those goals and to ODA.

Has Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, for example, raised expectations throughout Africa merely to dash them by supporting any nomination of the US government, even a nominee who might turn his back on the core recommendations of the Blair Africa Commission?

A European, or any other, counterweight as deputy to the World Bank President does not substitute for the need to know clearly, and forthrightly, the views of the candidates to the position of World Bank president.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Millennium Development Project, New York, NY 10017, US