Jeffrey Sachs, the author of ‘The End of Poverty’, worked as the
Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and as the director of the
Earth Institute at Columbia University. He served as economic advisor to
countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has made relentless
contribution to Millennium development Goals (MDG) and poverty reduction.
The book is an attempt to suggest how the world can get rid of
the cases of extreme poverty situations. The writer is not forecasting what
will happen; rather he is suggesting what can happen. He believes that our
generation holds the capacity
to eliminate the extreme poverty in next twenty years. The capacity we have- in
terms of wealth of the rich world and the power of knowledge- and through
collective decisions- can provide promising ways to fight poverty and shape our
future. His insight, conviction and argument-presented in this book- are based
on his field experiences over hundred nations with around ninety per cent of
the world population.
The book begins with an overview of the distribution of world’s
poor by region. The distribution is based on the degrees of poverty- mainly
extreme poverty (below $1 per day) and moderate poverty (between $1 per day and
$2 per day) - and it shows the situation in 2001. Out of 1.1 billion poor
people, 93 per cent live in three regions, East Asia, South Asia, and
Sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1981, the number has increased in case of Africa
(almost half of the population already in extreme poverty), but has comparatively
decreased in East Asia and South Asia (with an advancement of Information
Technology and globalization).
However, the tragedy, Sachs says, is that one sixth of the world
population is extremely poor and this portion lives mostly in regions where
countries like Malawi, Bangladesh, India and China belong. Therefore, the
biggest challenge is to get this one-sixth out of the poverty trap, ensure the
one-sixth with basic needs, health, education and nutrition, and to lift them
up to the ladder of development. Before this, it is necessary, Sachs says, to
understand ‘how we got to where we are’.
Sachs portrays the historical overview of the spread of Economic
prosperity with an aim to understand the vast inequality. Until 1800 A.D.,
poverty is seen among every one (universal poverty) except few rulers and
landowners. But since 1800, the era of modern economic growth begins.
Technological advancement accelerates the economic growth of Europe and US. For instance: US per capita attain
twenty-five-fold increase ($1200 to $30,000) at an annual growth rate of around
1.7 per cent per year. While the average per capita income of Africa increases
by three-fold ($ 400 to $1300) during the time frame of 1820 to 2000 at an
annual growth rate of 0.7 per cent per annum.
The primary reason behind uneven growth, according to Sachs, is
“the richer countries were able to
achieve two centuries of modern economic growth. The poorest did not even begin
their economic growth until decades later, and then often under tremendous
obstacles”. However, there are many other problems in the complex system of economic growth. Some
of these are the Poverty trap, physical geography, fiscal trap, governance
failures, cultural barriers, geopolitics, poor Economic policy framework, Lack
of innovation and the demographic trap. Nonetheless, there are practical solutions
to these problems which can be achieved, but Sachs suggests, it needs, ‘a good action plan with a good differential
diagnosis of the specific factors that have shaped the economic conditions of a
nation’. He emphasizes the failure of Structural Adjustment Policies-the narrow
approach led by IMF and World Bank- is the main reason for putting the
development practice in the wrong direction. Therefore, Sachs proposes
‘Clinical Economics’ as a new diagnostic method for development economics that
check-lists the complex system of economic growth and find the solution.
