Items related to The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty
A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end extreme global poverty, now a Signal paperback.
"The poor you will always have with you," according to Matthew 26:11. But Jeffrey Sachs, economics superstar, special advisor to the Secretary General of the UN and the author of The End of Poverty, vehemently disagrees. In his view, poverty -- especially the extreme deprivation of sub-Saharan Africa -- can easily be eradicated. The vast sums spent in foreign aid over the decades has not come close to alleviating the dire subsistence problems of Africans. Sachs believed he knew the reason: the developed world simply hadn't spent enough. In 2006, Sachs, backed by tens of millions of donor dollars, launched the five-year Millennium Villages Project. Sachs would test his theories in villages in different African countries, then, with each success, scale up until until the program was continent-wide. His first village "make-over" was a small community in Sauri, Kenya, and the immediate effect was encouraging. With that first inkling of success achieved, Sachs rolled out a dozen model Millennium villages in ten countries.
For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Project, following Sachs on official trips and listening in on conversations with heads of states, rival organisations and potential donors. And she has immersed herself in the lives of people in two of the remote villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting hospitality from these camel herders and smallhold farmers, and sharing in their struggles, Munk came to understand the on-the-ground issues challenging Sachs' one-size-fits-all approach to global poverty.
The Idealist is the profound and moving story of what happened when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man met messy human reality.
"The poor you will always have with you," according to Matthew 26:11. But Jeffrey Sachs, economics superstar, special advisor to the Secretary General of the UN and the author of The End of Poverty, vehemently disagrees. In his view, poverty -- especially the extreme deprivation of sub-Saharan Africa -- can easily be eradicated. The vast sums spent in foreign aid over the decades has not come close to alleviating the dire subsistence problems of Africans. Sachs believed he knew the reason: the developed world simply hadn't spent enough. In 2006, Sachs, backed by tens of millions of donor dollars, launched the five-year Millennium Villages Project. Sachs would test his theories in villages in different African countries, then, with each success, scale up until until the program was continent-wide. His first village "make-over" was a small community in Sauri, Kenya, and the immediate effect was encouraging. With that first inkling of success achieved, Sachs rolled out a dozen model Millennium villages in ten countries.
For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Project, following Sachs on official trips and listening in on conversations with heads of states, rival organisations and potential donors. And she has immersed herself in the lives of people in two of the remote villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting hospitality from these camel herders and smallhold farmers, and sharing in their struggles, Munk came to understand the on-the-ground issues challenging Sachs' one-size-fits-all approach to global poverty.
The Idealist is the profound and moving story of what happened when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man met messy human reality.
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About the Author:
NINA MUNK is a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, where she writes about business and finance, and the author of Fools Rush In: Jerry Levin, Steve Chase, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner. She was born in Brampton, Ontario, and lives in New York City.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherSignal
- Publication date2035
- ISBN 10 0771062524
- ISBN 13 9780771062520
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages288
- Rating
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