Economist: Malaysia has weapons of mass salvation for the world

from The Malaysian Star

By SHAHANAAZ HABIB

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia can play a powerful leadership role in helping end global poverty, said world-renowned economist Prof Jeffrey Sachs.

He urged Malaysia to help poverty-wracked countries in Africa and Asia as it had in hand “weapons of mass salvation” that could be offered as lessons to the rest of the world.

The weapons include community-based development projects such as Felda, Mada, and Felcra that benefited the people, micro-financing which could help thousands of families, social services for health and education and infrastructure.

“This is what needs to be done worldwide. There’s no need to wait for the United States and Europe to take up what this country can do,” he said in his public lecture on The End of Poverty at Universiti Malaya.

Prof Sachs is the first holder of the Royal Professor Ungku Aziz chair at UM.

He said although Malaysia was a small country, what was needed more than anything else was “demonstrations of success and what can work.”

“This in itself will be transformative. We take away excuses from the rich. We take away excuses from the poor and from everybody that it can’t be done, by showing it can be done!

Prof Sachs believed Malaysia was on track to meet its goal of eradicating hardcore poverty by 2010.

Malaysia, he said, had a natural leadership role in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), a grouping where 22 of its 57 member states were impoverished countries in Africa and in Asia.

He said Malaysia, too, had scientific leadership in high yield agro forestry and management of soil nutrients that was unmatched in the world.

He urged Malaysia to transfer its know-how in agriculture success to countries in West Africa.

“In a way, it’s only fair. Palm oil that has made your country rich came from there.

“Help them in return, please. The ecology is similar. Its rainforest, the soils have similarities. Palm, rubber, cocoa and tropical trees and crops are common to Malaysia and West Africa,” he said.

He added that Togo and Benin were

desperate to invigorate their palm oil industries while Senegal, too, was in need of help.

In East Africa, he said, Malaysia which was a big investor in Sudan, could play a role in the Darfur crisis by “turning from the insistence on sanctions and military operation” to an approach based on development.

Of the world’s one billion hardcore poor, Prof Sachs said 300 million came from the sub Sahara and African region and another 400 million were from South Asia, the two most badly afflicted regions.

Prof Sachs, who is also the special advisor to the United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, said it was “almost unbelievable” how they had to “fight for scraps” from rich nations to fight poverty.