The Idealist

Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty

Author  Nina Munk
The Idealist

A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end extreme global poverty, now a Signal paperback.
     "The poor you will always have with you," according to Matthew 26:11. But Jeffrey Sachs, economics superstar, special advisor to the Secretary General of the UN and the author of The End of Poverty, vehemently disagrees. In his view, poverty -- especially the extreme deprivation of sub-Saharan Africa -- can easily be eradicated. The vast sums spent in foreign aid over the decades has not come close to alleviating the dire subsistence problems of Africans. Sachs believed he knew the reason: the developed world simply hadn't spent enough. In 2006, Sachs, backed by tens of millions of donor dollars, launched the five-year Millennium…