Jeffrey Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University

Strategic Session Date: April 5, 2006

Summary:

Prof. Sachs believes that current U.S. policy is not focusing enough on the most pressing global issues. He feels we need to understand the real problems - climate change, disease, and economic situation - to understand the world's challenges and how we can contribute to solving them. Poverty is one part of the overall challenge, but we must analyze how the world's broad, interconnected society can be held together more peacefully and more coherently. He claims the U.S. has the ability to turn the tide on poverty, particularly with today's technologies. A proper development strategy is one in which the poorest of the poor are empowered with the best option in technologies, fighting disease, having children in school, being connected to the broader markets. He is advocating for a significant investment in three major areas - agriculture, health and basic infrastructure. Prof. Sachs began the Millennium Promise with two major programs: the Millennium Village (MV) Project and a bed net drive, both programs that target individual villages, rather than national governments. He maintains that to solve macroeconomic problems in Africa, we need to begin with micro-aid programs that transform villages from poverty to self-sufficiency by addressing the unique challenges of each community.

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