Heal the world

When commencing his tenure as the Secretary General of the United Nations on January 1, 2007, Ban-Ki moon may have been in a quandary as to who he would choose to be among his special advisers.

Assuredly, an integral component of his strategy must have been to look at whom Kofi Annan, his predecessor, had sought wise counsel from and headhunt them to assist him in one of the world's most scrutinised job. How many of Annan's cabinet of the great and good were foregone conclusions for a recall?

One, possibly. When TIME magazine repeatedly ranks an academic as one of the most influential people in the world - partly due to his widely-perceived rank as the leading economic adviser of his generation - it would have been nonsensical for the new UN chief to not consider him for a role. In the end, the head UN head incumbent did select Jeffrey Sachs as a special adviser.

High-profile roles and accolades rarely come without credentials. Sachs has served as an adviser to governments and host of international development agencies worldwide. In his distinguished career, the Harvard-educated professor has contributed nearly four decades to prescribing solutions at a global level for some of the world's most critical challenges, from economic development and globalisation to poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability. The advice Sachs has dispensed to two consecutive UN chiefs must, by necessity, be special.

The current head of the US-based Earth Institute will also be visiting Dubai to speak at the inaugural Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) Week on November 20. Arabian Business had the exclusive opportunity to speak to the 53 year-old sage about dealing with the world's greatest plights and how those in the Middle East can participate in alleviating these mounting challenges.

For Sachs - the economist - emerging markets like those in the Gulf will continue to be successful within the world economy in the near future, but he does foresee challenges which he will address in ‘The Gate Lecture' at the world's newest financial centre. "One is the challenge of helping the poor regions which are not yet emerging markets - especially sub-Saharan Africa - and the other is collectively to face up to the environmental challenges, especially climate changes," he says. The Indian Ocean economy, as Sachs terms it, is re-emerging as an important component in the world economy, and the challenge of Africa, particularly East Africa, should be of key interest for the Gulf region.

"If we can channel some key public investments in Africa into agriculture, education, health and infrastructure, that will provide a lift-off for extremely poor regions to get into the process of self-sustaining economic growth," Sachs says. Public investment can go hand in hand with private investment to "really unleash a dynamism that is latent in Africa right now", whereby economies which are currently experiencing about 6% in annual economic growth can be pushed to achieve "double digits".

For Sachs, Dubai has become an entrepôt for the emerging Indian Ocean economy in the same way Singapore was for South East Asia, and can therefore play a significant role in attracting and making these public investments.

Sachs is currently at the forefront of meeting the challenge to alleviate poverty, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2000, 192 UN member states agreed to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aimed to achieve noble aims such as reducing poverty and providing universal children's education by 2015. For Sachs, the MDGs are the first step towards eliminating poverty, and so from 2002 to 2006, the economist headed the UN's Millennium Project which aimed to provide the organisational means to achieve the eight primary goals.

In his best-selling 2005 book, The End of Poverty, Sachs argued that with the right policies, mass destitution - like the 1.1 billion extremely poor living on less than a dollar a day - can be eliminated in two decades. To achieve this noble aim, one key element proposed was to raise development aid to impoverished nations from the US$65bn per year level of 2002, to US$195bn by 2015. At the time, Sachs argued that the developed world could afford to raise the poorest countries out of extreme poverty, highlighting that 0.7% of the gross national product of First World countries would be enough to achieve this.

In 2007, and halfway from the goals' end, many, including those working at the UN, say the goals cannot be achieved by 2015 - but Sachs accentuates what has been achieved and proposes a change in strategy. While African economies have become better organised in addressing key challenges of agriculture, health, education and infrastructure, Sachs blames the United States in particular as well as Europe for not doing enough to assist Africa. "What hasn't happened [in Africa] is the turning of these improved plans into very large-scale investments and that is partly because the assistance that was promised financially has only come out in a dribble from the US and Europe."

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