UN worker speaks out against poverty

from the Daily Cardinal

By: Caitlin Gath

Students watch a live web cast from Jeffrey Sachs, UN director of the Millennium Project, about economic disparities across the globe.

Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent economist and director of the United Nations Millennium Project, spoke to students Tuesday via a live web lecture regarding his plans to eradicate poverty.

Sachs spoke on behalf of Project 40/40, an awareness and fundraising campaign for the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative. The project’s goal is to connect UW-Madison’s 40,000 students with 40,000 HIV positive Ugandans who are in desperate need of funding for their AIDS medication.

Members from Project 40/40 said they tried for over a year to convince Sachs to speak to UW-Madison students.

“He’s like a rock star. He’s basically Bono,” said Jesse Ayala, a UW-Madison sophomore and Project 40/40 member.

Ayala said Sachs’ dedication to his work is always his top priority. According to Ayala, when a reporter asked Sachs if he ever takes time for himself, he responded, “In case you haven’t noticed, people are dying. This is an emergency.”

Sachs direct works on the Millennium Project, an initiative whose primary goal is to accomplish Millennium Development Goals through implementation of infrastructure, agriculture and education. The initiative seeks to, among other goals, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education and combat HIV/AIDS and malaria.

Sachs focused his speech on countries that are plagued by economic hardship and his experiences with fieldwork abroad.

“I began working with countries in economic crisis … like a doctor making house calls for a sick economy,” Sachs said.

He said when he was invited to travel to Bolivia as an economic advisor to their government in 1985, he found it so exhilarating that he wanted to continue with similar work. Since then he has divided his time between fieldwork and teaching at Columbia University.

Sachs stressed to students that public health issues are an ongoing problem.

“Natural selection is always at work … we have to proceed on two tracks—mass application with what we have and basic science to develop yet more tools,” he said.