Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

From the end of February 2007, Webdiary will no longer be publishing articles sourced from Project Syndicate, including those from Jeffrey Sachs. Subsequent articles in Professor Sach's Economics and Justice series can be accessed via the Project Syndicate site here.

For politicians in persistent denial about the need to act, including US President George W. Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, there is no longer any place to hide.

The scenario has become painfully familiar. A war ends. An international donors’ conference is called. Pledges of billions of dollars are announced. But actual reconstruction and recovery is delayed, perhaps for years. Crony businesses from the US and Europe, which are utterly unfamiliar with local conditions, squander time, aid funds, and opportunities. Recriminations fly, the occupying army remains, and a new insurgency spreads.

"Many international assistance programs fail because they are badly designed and/or too complicated. The result is that the poor don’t get the help they need, and taxpayers in rich countries lose confidence in the use of their aid funds. A case in point has been malaria control. If rich countries adopt simpler and more practical strategies to help Africa fight malaria, they can save millions of Africans while building enthusiastic support among their citizens.": Jeffrey Sachs

"During his mandate, new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will face the pressing challenge of forging a global agreement on climate change for the years beyond 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol ends. The Millennium Development Goals remain far off track in the poorest countries, with just nine years to go. Despite a global pledge to reduce significantly the loss of biological diversity by 2010, huge areas of rainforest and oceans continue to be destroyed.": Jeffrey Sachs

"Our political systems and global politics are largely unequipped for the real challenges of today’s world. Global economic growth and rising populations are putting unprecedented stresses on the physical environment, and these stresses in turn are causing unprecedented challenges for our societies. Yet politicians are largely ignorant of these trends. Governments are not organized to meet them. And crises that are fundamentally ecological in nature are managed by outdated strategies of war and diplomacy.": Jeffrey Sachs

"President Bush recently invited journalists to imagine the world 50 years from now. He did not have in mind the future of science and technology, or a global population of nine billion, or the challenges of climate change and biodiversity. Instead, he wanted to know whether Islamic radicals would control the world’s oil. Whatever we are worrying about in 50 years, this will surely be near the bottom of the list. " Jeffrey Sachs

"We need to reject “us-versus-them” logic, in which Israel is pure and the Arabs are evil (or vice versa). Every state in the region must embrace compromise and mutual respect as the basis of a lasting settlement. Israel will not be able to avoid territorial withdrawals to the 1967 borders by exercising its military might; the US will not be able to ensure oil security through continued military occupation in the Middle East; and terrorists will not be able to destroy Israel or foist their fundamentalist ideas by force on moderate societies." Jeffrey Sachs

"The problem lies not in seeing the solution, but in getting to it, because powerful and often violent minorities on both sides oppose it."

"Even when politicians don’t lead, it is still possible for committed individuals and voluntary organizations to change the world. The key is to link a bold idea with a practical and powerful technology, and then to push the idea and technology forward through mass citizen action." Jeffrey D Sachs

"This spring’s presidential election in Haiti sadly re-enforced the country’s blighted reputation. The paradox is that today Haiti has a chance, perhaps the best in its modern history, to escape from its long history of extreme poverty and turmoil." Jeffrey D Sachs

"Fewer debates over economics would be needed if the world spent more time examining what actually works and what does not. Almost everywhere, debate has raged about how to combine market forces and social security. The left calls for an expansion of social protection; the right says that doing so would undermine economic growth and widen fiscal deficits." Jeffrey D Sachs

"Does the rise of left-leaning governments in Latin America, particularly the election of Evo Morales as President of Bolivia, presage a shift to the hard left across the continent? Does it mark a repudiation of United States foreign policy in the region? Will it, for example, lead to a re-nationalisation of Bolivia’s vast natural gas deposits?" Jeffrey D Sachs

"Almost daily, the United States and Europe brandish threats to impose economic sanctions or cut off development assistance unless some vulnerable government accepts their political strictures. The most recent threats are towards the new Hamas-led government in Palestine. Other recent examples include threats vis-à-vis Chad, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Bolivia, Uganda, and long-standing sanctions against Myanmar." Jeffrey D Sachs

"Long-term economic progress comes mainly from the invention and spread of improved technologies. The scientific revolution was made possible by the printing press, the industrial revolution by the steam engine, and India’s escape from famine by increased farm yields – the so-called “Green Revolution.” Today’s era of globalization emerged with the spread of computers and the Internet. Thus, when we seek solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems, they, too, are likely to be found, at least in part, in new technologies that can resolve old and seemingly intractable problems." Jeffrey D Sachs

"In the 2005 rankings, Iceland scored as the least corrupt country, with the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, and Singapore close behind. The US ranked seventeenth from the top, a not-so-glorious position for the world’s leading power. In general, the poorer the country, the lower the ranking: tied for last place are Chad and Bangladesh." Jeffrey Sachs.

"The actions that are needed are difficult to introduce, because they go to the heart of the world's use of energy, particularly its use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), which, when burned, release carbon dioxide - the key source of rising greenhouse gases - into the atmosphere. Yet the world economy depends on fossil fuels, and developing countries will need to use more, not less, of them as their economies grow. Even if the world runs out of oil and gas in the coming years, coal will prove to be plentiful, and solid coal can be converted at relatively low cost to liquid fuels for automobiles and other uses." Jeffrey D Sachs