Jeffrey Sachs and an
End to Poverty
Eric Lampe
SLUH Theology
5/1/07
Research Paper
Jeffrey
Sachs is a macroeconomist who has a cure to poverty. Economist are said to have
lived in “Ivory Towers” and not be in touch with reality but that is what
distinguishes Sachs from others. He has a practical, easy plan to help the
extreme poor of the world to lift themselves out of poverty.
Sachs,
a Detroit
native, got his Ph.D. from Harvard. [1] He
then went on to teach there and got his tenure at the age of 28. Now he is the
director of Columbia
University’s Earth
Institute and he is a special adviser to General Kofi A. Annan on the Millennium
Development Goals, a UN path to eliminating extreme poverty by 2025.[2] He has also been the advisor to many nations
such as Bulgaria, Bolivia, Russia, and others. His resume is
26 pages so in short, you could not make up a better academic and experience
filled background than Jeffrey Sachs has made for himself.
Even
with brilliant people, like Sachs, active in the world today, there is still
around one billion people who live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is when
people lack the basic needs of adequate food, basic health services, safe
drinking water, and a connection with the rest of the world.[3]
This year two million children will die from malaria.[4] One
out of every six people on earth struggle to satisfy basic needs, living off
only one dollar a day.[5]
Every day more than 20,000 people die from lack of food, safe drinking water,
medicine or other needs. [6]
In
a poll, the average American overestimated how much foreign aid the U.S. gives by
30 times.[7] The
total requirement for assistance across the entire globe is about $160 billion
a year.[8] To
put this in perspective this is about 0.7% of the gross national product of all
the rich countries in the world. Right now foreign aid is at about $80 billion
which is .5% of the gross national product of rich countries.[9]
The rich nations of the world have long promised more than 0.7% but never
actually fulfilled this promise. They have fallen short and a billion people
are still suffering right now. What can we do to help such a broad and enormous
issue?
Many
skeptics say that poverty will never be able to be eradicated poverty. They say
it is pointless to give foreign aid because it is used and it does not progress
the problem into a better future, it just helps control it for the time being.
They stress the failures, which there have been quite a few (notably Jeffrey
Sachs was an advisor to Russia
where his idea had little or no gain for the country), but Sachs suggest that
maybe countries have been going about it entirely wrong this whole time. Maybe
if we switched the method of foreign aid, we could help countries and people to
help lift themselves out of poverty. Sachs says that now we excessively focus
on changing the institutions of these countries but this may have done more
wrong than right. We need to focus more on direct aid which can reduce extreme
poverty in just a few years and still help the people of the country to shape
their own future.[10] When
people are in poverty they lack the basic tools to succeed. Tools in a literal
sense such as machinery and software for production but also people need tools
to assist agricultural inputs, clinics, medicine, schools and safe water. These
people in extreme poverty can gain access to these tools in a very short time
with aid from the rich countries. Once people have these tools they will be
relieved short term but the brilliant part of the plan is that it also gives
them the opportunity to shape their future.
This
may all seem to general and unspecific for some skeptics but when you go into
it more thoroughly you can see how it will work and has worked. Some of the
most economically prosperous nations were in the same state as those in
Sub-Saharan Africa are in right now. India,
China and Chile were in
turmoil, poverty, hunger and political unstable in the 1960s and 1970s.[11]
This is hope for those countries that today might seem to be lost causes
because if the right steps are taken they could soon be the next big market.
The
first step that needs to be taken deals with food yields. Farmers in Africa grow around one ton of cereal grains per hectare
which is about one third the average yield of other countries.[12] They
don’t have the tools to be able to produce like other countries can. They need
fertilizers, high-yield seeds and water management. The farmers are too poor to
purchase these things on their own so they plant enough to survive and not
enough to make a product. If given the tools to move from survival farming to
cash crops they could then obtain a profit, reinvest in the farm and increase
their productivity each year. With that the family accumulates wealth which
gives them an opportunity to purchase new technologies. With the right tools
farmers can be put on a path of long term growth that will benefit them and the
other people in their country. For skeptics of this plan we look at Asia’s Green Revolution. The Rockefeller Foundation provided
new seeds for Chinese farmers. The United States
aided India
by giving fertilizer and seeds to impoverished farmers. In both countries food
yields doubled or tripled.[13]
Both of these countries are economically prosperous and both started out with a
“green revolution.” If aid is given to farmers then they can develop an income
so they can move to small business development. This helps them personally and
their country’s economy as a whole.
The
second step is to improve health conditions. Nutrition, clean drinking water,
and basic health services play a huge part in the economic development of a
nation because when people are healthy they have less expenses and in whatever
line of work they are in they will be more productive. As we said earlier 2 million
children die a year from malaria. This creates all sorts of problems and has a
huge impact on the economy. Malaria is so bad in Africa
that mothers are having six or seven kids because they don’t know how many will
survive.[14]
In China
when the infant mortality rate went down, parents gained more confidence in
their child’s chances of survival so they had fewer kids which gave them more
economic possibilities and helped the growth of the country.[15]
Malaria decreases workers productivity and it also scares away many potential
business investors. Malaria also increases the likelihood that HIV will be
transmitted from one person to another. Malaria is something that can be
greatly decreased with aid. There are insecticide-treated bed nets that last up
to five years and are proven to lower the rate of malaria. It costs ten dollars
to manufacture, ship and distribute each net. There is also a new medicine that
treats this disease at a cost of about one dollar a treatment. If a package
were created to treat all Africans at risk it would be about $4.50 per person
and a total of about $3 billion. To put this mass amount of money in
perspective, $3 billion is about 12.5% of the $24 billion of Wall Street’s
Christmas bonuses given this year. For the rich countries of the world this
comes out to be $3, one Starbucks coffee, a person a year to combat one of the
biggest health problems plaguing impoverished countries today. [16]
The
third step is to move from economic isolation to international trade. When a
country becomes more involved in international business, they are given jobs
and given an opportunity to create income for themselves which helps their
economy to grow. Chile has
prospered so much because they have become the number one off-season fruit
source to the United States.
Countries like China and India have
grown so much because they are exporters of manufactured goods and provide
services used by rich nations.[17]
In Bangladesh,
1.8 million people are employed in T-shirt factories and 5 million are
indirectly given work from the business these factories bring.[18]
Some US
activists are trying to fight these “sweatshops” that they claim don’t pay the
workers enough and have bad working conditions. In reality the women that work
in these factories were poor rural farmers that now have a sense of personal
freedom because they have an income of their own. Employment gives them a
chance to use their profit and progress their lives while benefiting the
economy. Also with urban development the farmers now have a market for their
growing food source. However, all this can only be possible if countries
improve means of connection. All weather roads need to be built, sources of
electricity need to be developed, telecommunication needs to be possible,
internet needs to be available, and means of transport needs to be provided.
All of this can be done with foreign aid while still boosting the economy more
because it provides jobs to develop those things.
There
is a growing sentiment of anti-Americanism in the world which can be linked
largely to poverty. The United State’s failure to address collapsing governments,
failing economies, refugee movements, disease spreading, and terrible poverty
is creating hatred towards rich countries like the United States. From this hatred
terrorist activities develop.[19]
It is in our countries and our best interest to aid the poor people of the
world. It will ultimately affect our safety, prosperity and allies today and in
the future. It is possible too. Right now the UN is working on The Millennium
Development project which has brought stability to 10 African countries.
Malaria is under control there. Farmers are changing to cash crops. Children
are being educated and given a meal at school for nutrition. The future is
looking good for these countries but The Millennium Development Goals cannot be
achieved right now because of lack of donor aid. The future of poverty is in
rich country’s hands. The poorest people in the world want a chance for a
better future for themselves and for their children. If they are given the
tools they will take the chance and make the most of it.
End Notes