UN Chronicle | Developing a Global Partnership for Development: 'How Can You Produce So Much Material and Be Efficient?'

Developing a Global Partnership for Development: 'I'm Thrilled at the Quality of Material Being Produced'
By Noel Sutter for the Chronicle

Biography

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Jeff Sachs, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and Director of Columbia's Earth Institute, currently serves as an economic advisor to Governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. A well-known economist, he continues to consult and serve on the commissions and boards of several agencies, including the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the United States Congress.

A recipient of many awards and honours, Mr. Sachs recently left his position as Director of Harvard's Center for International Development to take responsibilities with the United Nations and the Earth Institute, where he hopes to further his life-long goal of fostering economic growth in developing countries while also promoting human health and preserving the environment.

Academic institutions join in the determination to help solve the world's most challenging problems as realization is sought of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Columbia University's Earth Institute creates knowledge on global well-being and sustainability by integrating earth, life and social sciences in ways that no other institution in the world can be said to have done before. And at the centre of it all is Jeff Sachs.
Noel Sutter spoke with Jeff Sachs on behalf of the Chronicle.

Interview

Jeff, you have already accomplished so much! And now you are Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and, at the same time, Director of Columbia's Earth Institute, where you can steer research into areas of your choosing. Is this one of the most exciting opportunities you have ever had?
Well certainly, you have got it exactly right. This is a dream of a combination of responsibilities. I am absolutely thrilled to be taking on both. The connections between them are so powerful and I think they are going to be so fruitful, it's really thrilling.

What successes in the fight against global poverty brighten your spirits the most?
This is not a good period for the poorest of the poor. So I think the successes in there have to be seen against the backdrop of a very grave crisis. The AIDS pandemic is the most significant pandemic in modern history. It has already claimed more than 25 million lives, and the world has not done a good job responding. However, there have been successes. In economic development, China, a country with 1.3 billion people, has been the most striking because of its significant increase on economic well-being. And in the past decade we've seen much economic progress in India and in many other places. We have also seen some important successes in the fight against disease. Partnerships to fight leprosy, African river blindness and Guinea worm have proven successful. But when you add it all up, I say the balance is more troubling than positive, because of the profound gap between what we could be accomplishing and what we have accomplished so far. We have a lot of work to do and absolutely no right or time to congratulate ourselves on accomplishments. Rather, it's time to get to the hard work of actually achieving the goals that we, as a world community, have set for ourselves but so far have not mobilized to achieve. So political will starts with the broad realization that we have to attend to our future in a more serious and systematic way.

What is the world's most urgent problem?
To understand that we have a common stake in our future. If we continue to see problems as "us versus them"—whether it's in environment, water scarcity or disease control—we're never going to succeed. So I think the most urgent problem is the understanding that we have common stakes in all of these.

The Earth Institute, with its enormous capacity to create knowledge and even solve some leading world problems, needs a working arm to get the knowledge out there and implement its strategies. Do you think leaders will make global development and sustainability enough of a priority to commit the resources needed to get the work done anytime soon?
I think that there is really a profound sense in this country and throughout the world that we absolutely have to attend to these problems. People in their daily lives know the weather is changing (to put it proverbially). They know the rains are either not coming, or coming so ferociously that they are leading to devastation or flooding. New Yorkers and farmers in the Southwest on both sides of the United States-Mexican border alike are concerned with drought conditions and conserving water. People know that new diseases are appearing and spreading faster than before. Certainly, the people struggling in southern Africa are aware of these changes. These and the effects of so many different factors of development or lack of attention are requiring us to think anew and think creatively about these problems.

The Biosphere 2 Center, outside Tucson, Arizona, is one of eight research centres that Jeffrey Sachs oversees. It is the location of the famous experiment in the early nineties where eight "bionaughts" were sealed in for two years to see how man might function in a colony on another planet. Each of the Earth Institute's research centres has its own unique perspective on understanding sustainability. Scientists work across disciplines to address issues, such as water toxicity and its impact on health, AIDS and urban sustainability. In just five years, the Institute has become a leader in earth systems research and the application of that science for the benefit of mankind.

I doubt that there is a place in the world where that feeling is not shared. I believe in the end that since these problems are so important to solve we will find a common understanding and ways to cooperate, and also find new global institutional mechanisms to solve them. Our capacity to solve the problems is there. I also believe that a great part of that is going to come through the United Nations—that's why I am so privileged to be part of it right now. It is by far the most promising path for humanity to have a working United Nations system that can bring the world together to address these challenges.

What about altruism in the private sector?
Well, the private sector is not born on altruism, nor really in a well-functioning world does it need to be. In well-organized companies, which care about their bottom-line foremost, they understand that a healthy world is good for them in the long term and should be part of their corporate strategy to be good global citizens. Not only is there tremendous knowledge and technology, there is also pride in them. Many companies want to make their special knowledge and technologies available to the world—not necessarily on a philanthropic basis and not necessarily always fighting for the next penny or profit. Many companies now are rising to the idea of donating some of their technologies to help transfer them to poor countries, or to help in the fight against disease. They may not help by corporate philanthropy but by making their drugs available at cost rather than at a profit. And that's good corporate citizenship. I think we can count on a great part of the business sector to be responsible partners in this, and that's what I look to them for.

Is there something you'd like to say to the Chronicle?
There is one more point I would like to make. It has been my privilege since the start of this year to be Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General, and in that capacity I am reading a lot more UN documents. I am incredibly thrilled by the high quality of work being done. So many tremendous reports, and I'll name just a few: the UNCTAD report on least developed countries for 2002; the UNEP annual report on the state of the world (GEO-3); and WHO special reports on health challenges—these are absolutely first-rate documents. They give the most serious analysis around. The UNEP report, for example, is based on a collaboration of thousands of researchers around the world, and there is at least hundreds of research institutions listed at the back of the study.

I know that in the United States, people do not appreciate or understand the quality of work that is being done. Many say: "What good is the UN? What's it doing?" What I think it is doing is producing the finest analyses one can find right now of the international challenges. An extremely important part of what I want to do is to get more people in the donor Governments to read these things and also in other places where people have an interest in these important questions. What these show, aside from the high quality of these analyses, is that we have approaches and answers, if we care to look for them. Pretending that there aren't approaches, or that nobody has thought through strategies, is part of our problem. It's part of the way that countries that don't want to take the responsibility have avoided this until now. In this sense, I am most delighted to have all these new colleagues who are producing these wonderful studies, and I am looking forward to working with the authors of these studies in the Millennium Project that I will head in the next three years.

Action, Jeff? Is that what we need instead of more studies?
That's it. That's what I'm saying. The studies are there. We've got tremendous knowledge. But if people don't read them and pretend they don't exist, and argue that there aren't solutions, then unfortunately, like you say, the studies come to naught. One of the things the Millennium Project can do, I hope, is to bring to the highest level of public attention the quality of analysis that we have to face these challenges. And I think that is going to help.

—Noel Sutter is a freelance writer and entrepreneur.

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