Editorial: Jeffrey Sachs offers World Bank a fitting perspective on poverty

Editorial: Jeffrey Sachs offers World Bank a fitting perspective on poverty

Jeff Sachs
Candidate for President of the World Bank

The World Bank was created in 1944, and its official goal is still to end poverty. You wouldn't necessarily know that, though, by studying the succession of Wall Street bankers and career politicians who have led the international financial institution that provides billions of dollars of loans to developing countries.

Their lack of expertise on global economic development issues and insensitivity to the needs of developing nations have eroded the institution's credibility and, more important, undermined its ability to carry out its mission to reduce poverty and increase stability in some of the world's poorest regions.

Current World Bank President Robert Zoellick, previously a managing director of Goldman Sachs, will step down when his five-year term ends on June 30. By nominating world renowned American economist Jeffrey Sachs to succeed him, the administration of Barack Obama can move the World Bank in a more constructive direction -- one more closely aligned with its mission.

U.S. Representative
John Conyers, Jr.

Other names Obama may consider include U.S. Sen. John Kerry, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, and economist Lawrence Summers -- none of whom can match Sachs' understanding of how economic development works around the world. Nor do most of them appear interested in the job. Sachs' congressional supporters include U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit.

Sachs, 57, a Detroit-area native, was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2004 and 2005. He is the world's leading expert on sustainable economic development -- an expertise he has demonstrated not only in New York Times best-selling books like "The End of Poverty" but also by helping to develop the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an organization that has saved millions of lives with vaccines and other low-cost but effective treatment and prevention measures.

Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and serves as special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. For more than 25 years, he has advised governments throughout the developing world on economic development and environmental problems. He founded the Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger, and he directed work on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015.

As Sachs wrote in a March 1 column, the leader of the World Bank should come to office "understanding the realities of flooded villages, drought-ridden farms, desperate mothers hovering over comatose, malaria-infected children." Sachs would.

Some people have criticized Sachs for the unprecedented -- and perhaps unseemly -- act of openly campaigning for the presidency of the World Bank. But his enthusiasm, passion and even self-promotion are preferable to the murky, back-room dealing that normally precedes the appointment of a World Bank president.

To be sure, the president of the World Bank needs political skills to balance the needs and demands of donor and borrowing governments, but such a leader must also know how to use aid, technical assistance and loans to create prosperous, healthy, stable and secure communities and nations. That's the mission of the World Bank, and no one is more qualified to carry it out than Jeffrey Sachs.

Mr. President: Nominate Jeffrey Sachs

U.S. Representative
John Conyers, Jr

The following letter was sent to President Obama by Rep. Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and 26 other members of Congress.

Dear Mr. President,

When the member nations of the World Bank meet this spring to select the organization’s next president, we strongly encourage you to nominate Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as the United States’ candidate. We believe that Professor Sachs has the experience, expertise and bold vision for the future needed to lead the World Bank at this critical moment in history.

Professor Sachs is widely considered to be the world’s leading expert on economic development and the fight against poverty. For over 25 years, he has advised dozens of governments throughout the developing world on economic development, environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, debt cancellation, and globalization. He has twice been named among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. He was described by the New York Times as “probably the most important economist in the world,” and by Time Magazine as “the world’s best known economist.” A recent survey by The Economist Magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world’s three most influential living economists of the past decade.

Professor Sachs’ work has been pivotal in many of the key junctures of globalization during the past thirty years. In the 1980s he helped several Latin American countries including Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru to end hyperinflations and renegotiate their external debts. In 1989, Professor Sachs advised Poland’s anti-communist Solidarity movement and the first post-communist government of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and wrote the first-ever comprehensive plan for the transition from central planning to a market democracy. Sachs’s ideas and methods of transition from central planning were successfully adopted throughout the transition economies. From the mid-1990s till today, Professor Sachs has been involved with economic reforms in many parts of Asia, including India and China, and he works with governments in the Middle East including Jordan and Qatar on poverty reduction, education, and ICT initiatives.

Professor Sachs has amassed an impressive track record of accomplishment over the years, including helping launch the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the President’s Malaria Initiative, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) and the Millennium Villages Project, which operates in more than one dozen African countries covering 500,000 people, and has pioneered a strategy of integrated rural development for poverty alleviation. He also played a critical role in bringing Members of Congress together on a bipartisan basis to pass the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, which established the highly successful President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

In recent years, the World Bank has often been headed by career politician or a Wall Street banker, who has often lacked significant experience or expertise in international development policy. As a result, it has often fallen short in its efforts to build sustainable economies and healthy communities for the people of the developing world. In contrast, Professor Sachs is a development professional and a problem solver – someone who has seen the destabilizing effects of poverty, famine, and resource scarcity first hand, and who has mobilized people and resources to do something about it. Under his leadership, the World Bank would be an entity that brings together the public sector, private enterprise, and civil society to forge creative solutions to these complex challenges.

As Professor Sachs recently noted, “The world is at a crossroads. Either the global community will join together to fight poverty, resource depletion, and climate change, or it will face a generation of resource wars, political instability, and environmental ruin.” If the world community is serious about addressing these challenges, it is clear that the World Bank’s next president should be an accomplished professional who is ready to tackle these great challenges from day one. We can think of no better person to play this critically important role than Professor Sachs and we hope that you will nominate him as the next President of this important international economic development organization.

The following members of Congress also signed this letter: Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.), Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Rep. James P. McGovern (D-Mass.), Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.), Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.).

House Dems ask Obama to push global poverty expert to lead World Bank

A group of House Democrats are calling on President Obama to push Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and global poverty expert to serve as the next president of the World Bank.

The coalition, led by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) argued that the global economic leadership position "has often been headed by [a] career politician or a Wall Street Banker," and that it was time to name a man who has spent much of his career focused on global poverty. So far, the letter has garnered the signatures of 20 Democrats.

U.S Representative
John Conyers, Jr.

"It [the World Bank] has often fallen short in its efforts to build sustainable economies and healthy communities for the people of the developing world," the letter stated. "In contrast, Professor Sachs is a development professional and a problem solver — someone who has seen the destabilizing effects of poverty, famine, and resource scarcity first hand, and who has mobilized people and resources to do something about it."

Sachs, currently the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, is publicly campaigning for the position.
“There have been 11 presidents of the World Bank, and not one of them yet has been an expert in international development,” Sachs told The Washington Post. “The world would be better off and America’s interests in a peaceful world would be better served by an expert in development at the bank.”

Obama is expected to play a leading role in filling the top spot at the World Bank, which will become open in June. Current President Robert Zoellick has informed the institution he does not plan to extend his time there beyond his five-year tenure.

While the World Bank's leader is technically chosen by its board, longtime convention has the United States effectively naming its head as the group's largest contributor. That power comes as part of a long-standing agreement under which the head of the International Monetary Fund comes from Europe.

No one has been publicly named by the White House as a candidate for the spot, but reports indicated that former Treasury secretary and Obama adviser Lawrence Summers and United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice are being considered. And Obama may be open to a nontraditional pick, as Bloomberg has reported the White House included Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in initial discussions.

Following Zoellick's announcement in February, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the White House would be naming its preferred candidate in the "coming weeks."