SPIRITUAL FOCUS ON BOOKS November 28, 2005 Issue

LIFTING NATIONS OUT OF THE POVERTY TRAP: MISSION POSSIBLE

ROSALIE E. DUNBAR

IT'S NOT EASY to write about poverty, its causes and effects, in a winning way. But in his book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey D. Sachs presents the issues with intelligence, conviction, and the rarest of all qualities when poverty is under discussion: hope. He is convinced that it is possible to meet the United Nations Millennium Goals of cutting poverty in half by 2015 and ending extreme poverty by 2025.

Roughly one-sixth of the world's population—about a billion people—live in extreme poverty; they live on the equivalent of one dollar or less per day. They are barely surviving, and, if nothing changes, these people have no future. Another 1.5 billion live just above subsistence level, on about two dollars per day. They are very poor, but can aspire to move beyond their current condition. Most of them will also need help to make that transition. Sachs is convinced that both groups can break out of the poverty trap.

The Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to Kofi Annan on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, Sachs was a fast-rising, tenured professor at Harvard University by the time he was 28. In 1983, Sachs felt "I knew just about everything that needed to be known about the subject" of the financial crises affecting developing countries. Then an invitation to attend a Harvard seminar on hyperinflation in Bolivia totally transformed his life. Disagreeing with a statement in the presentation, he stepped forward and told the participants the theoretical solution to the problem. One of the individuals in the room said, "Well, if you're so smart, why don't you come to La Paz and help us?"

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