Jeffrey Sachs's Essay 'The End Of Poverty'

The importance of encouraging sustainable development worldwide has certainly not been lost on economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs. His honest and critical view of the Bush administration's time in office, notably the costly war on terror, opens up a discourse surrounding an alternative approach of using wealth, technology, and global awareness to fight disease and poverty; underlying factors that lead to radicalization, terrorism, and violence. In this essay, chapter 11 of “The End of Poverty” acts as a base in linking Sachs ideas and discussion of these “weapons of mass salvation,” and his exploration of the immense economic shortcomings brought on by war.

In September 2000, world leaders and actors gathered at The Millennium Assembly. They were filled with hope and high expectations for the future of the global society, and its ability to move forth and rid itself of the social, economic, and health related woes that plague the poorest nations. As Jeffrey Sachs states in chapter 11 of his book, “The End of Poverty,” there seemed to be this shared belief that globalization would “fulfill its promise” (Sachs, 2005, p. 210). Kofi Annan presented the document “We the Peoples: The Role of the
With the Doha Declaration (Sachs, 2005, p. 217) and more importantly The Monterrey Consensus, where the US and other countries agreed to “urge all developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts toward the goal of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) as official development assistance” (Sachs, 2005, p. 218). As Sachs states, the results of this would be game changing. US foreign aid would jump from $15 billion per year to around $75 billion per year (Sachs, 2005, p. 218). However, these predictions and hopes once again began to lose their