Jeffrey Sachs on Beating Global Poverty

Arbiter of Sach's reality

After reading Jeff's responses, I cannot help but be embarrassed by his answers. Mr. Sachs, however eloquent and polished in his answers lacks fundamental logic and understanding of Africa or the Middle East. His answers of utopian sophisticated systems that only someone of his intellect can "truly understand" are not only flawed but irresponsible and reckless.

The reality is his propagated misdirection is indirectly killing millions of people and sometimes doing good is not always good. I have visited the Millennium project in Kenya, read his book, and compared it against his boastful accomplishments, which I found to be either grossly overstated or fabricated. The project specifically in Kenya is an embarrassment to common sense, and cannot be replicated and is not a success by any stretch of the imagination. His idea that you can do 460 things to eliminate poverty only allows for more lack of accountability and excuses if the project or ideal fails. When failure occurs, Mr. Sachs blames it on corruption or internal pressures or breakdowns. When it succeeds(which it has not other than in manipulated and propagated terms) he touts his enormous intellect in understanding emerging and developing markets.

Fundamentally, the answers are simpler than the sophisticated algorithm Mr. Sachs has created. He speaks very well in his indictment of the billions we are spending to get nowhere, but does not understand the problem he is trying to dictate a solution for. I agree with his assessment of our failure, but not his solution, as it fails to again address the problem.

If Mr. Sachs for example would like to solve food scarcity issues, he must get to the root of the problem. The root is not food scarcity, but water scarcity. As you go further into the problem of water scarcity you get to the real problem which is not water scarcity but management of the resource of water. If you build reservoirs in Africa to withstand drought cycles you will be able to solve many of the underlying issues related to food scarcity. Obviously the solution is much more detailed than a one paragraph solution, but after 21,000 pages of research, interviews, assessments on the ground, and dialog with Universities and institutional professionals, I was astounded by the lack of thoughtful planning and understanding of the problem.

I have spent almost 2 years in Kenya working in partnership with a government parastatal organization to design an agricultural plantation model. I have done assessments and strategy development for Sudan both with the North and South. I understand from a high level what the issues are, and with all due respect, there is a huge disconnect between Mr. Sachs theory and reality.

Great book to read, White Man's Burden by William Easterly. Great organization which defies NGO incompetency in developing regions, Technoserve. Dont take my word for it.... Go to Kenya and see for yourself... Reality will scare you.

Joseph Oltmann of CO @ May 17, 2009 05:51:52 AM

poverty

ALso read Philosopher Peter Singer's ideas about our duties to people living in absolute poverty.

Valerie of OH @ Apr 18, 2009 11:21:46 AM

Sachs

I would gladly donate one percent of my income to end poverty. Why aren't there more economists like Sachs?

Laura of NC @ Feb 06, 2009 15:05:12 PM

If it were only that easy

I just learned about Jeffrey Sachs today. I am going to go read his book. I though I would mention the question that comes to mind as I begin to learn about his suggestions based on the very very little I have read today. What if you can't just show up with money and the know-how to do things like help farmers and build infrastructure? Many of the places I presume he is talking about are in multi-layered conflicts waging from roving bands of criminals to all-out war. Not everybody is just going to let somebody waltz in a build nice new ports, lay fiber-optic cable to mud huts, or help out farmers that may be their lifelong enemies, etc. I am curious to see how he suggests tackling these problems. I look forward to being enlightened by Jeffrey Sachs. No matter what I find, I hope he succeeds to improve the world for all of us here on Earth.

Chaim Krause of KS @ Dec 17, 2008 11:29:24 AM

Sachs

Old paradigms of thought are out the window. Getting our own house in order means "the world" because we are in many ways affected by what each does. Sachs is on the right track. People who really care must be willing to change thinking and give,for the future generations. Or it will be too late..

frank mattison of CA @ Nov 13, 2008 15:43:49 PM

Ending US Poverty

Before going to foreign countries to end poverty we should clean our own house. US wealth concentration causes humiliation and loss of incentive follows. Heavy progressive taxation will equalize wealth in the US, then we can go forward with looking at our neighbors. Helping others before the US will cause so much US anger that the people may pick up the gun.

William Leslie Fell of GA @ Sep 09, 2008 12:14:29 PM

Poverty

Sachs has part of the solution - but does not take into consideration the impact on poverty due of the political structure of these countries.

For the most part, it is almost impossible to set up a small enterprise in most third world countries because of the faulty legal structure and unimaginable bureaucracy... in fact, one can hardly even buy a home even if it were affordable!

A despotic or socialist government will so redistribute wealth that all incentive to productivity is lost or destroyed. Nepotism and corruption are out of control.

I wish there were a magic economic wand to wave over the poorest countries and make their intransigent problems disappear.... but pouring billions more into wishful thinking is destructive thinking...

Robert Hellebush of OH @ Aug 03, 2008 12:53:05 PM

Ending global poverty - why?

One the incentives to end global poverty, is that it will hurt the ability of terrorists to recruit desperate people from poor nations, and it will quell unrest that grows out of these people's poverty. Making the world a safer place is something we all want right?

of @ Apr 16, 2008 12:38:58 PM