UNITED NATIONS — The world could end extreme poverty within a decade if wealthy nations fulfilled their pledges to increase development aid, Columbia University economist Jeffrey D. Sachs said Monday as he presented a plan to the United Nations for achieving that goal.
But if those countries' governments don't come through with what they have already promised, the poor will continue to get poorer and the world less secure, he said.
"We are not asking for one new promise," he said. "Only the follow-through on what has already been committed."
Sachs is leading the U.N.'s Millennium Project to meet development goals adopted by world leaders at a summit in 2000, including eliminating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. Almost 3 billion people live on roughly $2 a day or less, and the report spells out the investments needed to elevate them above the level of bare survival and provide them with the means of leading productive lives.
"Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals" is the result of a yearlong study led by 265 development experts and is designed to show "not only that it can be done, but how it can be done," Sachs said.
As he spoke at a news conference Monday, he stacked a dozen reports by various task forces, which flesh out the recommendations, into a pile nearly a foot high.
If endorsed at a summit of the Group of 8 leading industrialized nations in July and a gathering of world leaders at the U.N. in September, the plan is expected to provide a blueprint not only for governments but for international institutions such as the World Bank that oversee major development projects.
Along with a call for a major overhaul of the international development system, it includes 18 "quick wins," simple and cost-effective ways to save and improve millions of lives that governments can implement immediately. The steps include providing school lunches for children, mosquito nets in malaria areas and generators for hospitals and schools.
But to end hunger and poverty in the next decade, the world would have to do much more. In 2000, developed nations promised to take concrete steps toward giving 0.7% of their gross national product for development aid. Today, only five countries do: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Six other countries have committed to reaching the target by 2015.
