The End of Poverty

Touch the Last Child: Can images of deprivation soon become just pieces of history? Jeffrey Sachs’ roadmap needs attention, says Pratap Bhanu Mehta The Indian Express Sunday, April 17, 2005

If one had to choose one word to describe both Jeffrey Sachs, the man and his vision, the word that comes to mind is audacious. The End of Poverty is doubly audacious. It chronicles one of the most astonishing careers an economist has ever had. Sachs tamed hyper-inflation in Bolivia, was credited with the success of Poland’s economic reforms, and was associated with shock therapy in Russia, a charge he denies. Subsequently, Sachs emerged as amongst the most indefatigable champions of the world’s poor, a principal architect of the Millennium Development Goals.

The book chronicles his attempts to understand the complexities of development, and lobbying rich countries to get their policies right. The second half is a vigorous argument in favour of new approaches to confront fatal diseases and debilitating poverty in developing countries, especially Africa. Its central message is that poverty and disease can be eradicated, but it will require, especially in Africa, generous aid.

Sachs shows with untiring vigour how developed countries have blocked every single move that could benefit really poor countries: blocked aid, reneged on debt forgiveness, refused to open their own markets, and then attached conditions to aid that were designed to ensure that aid programs failed. Sachs often writes with a great sense of historical parallel and irony. But along the way the reader will learn of the intimate connections between geography, climate, ecology and economics, lessons that few economists care to remember. The central lesson of this book is that development is difficult but not esoteric. Indeed, it is a failure to grasp the obvious that has most stymied the process of development.