Today, Ghana's President John Mahama, UK Secretary of State Andrew Mitchell and I travelled to northern Ghana to announce a new five-year development program for one of the poorest regions of West Africa. Our hope is that through public leadership, community participation, cutting-edge technologies, and private investments, the region will slash poverty, hunger and disease and begin to achieve high and sustained economic growth.
Poverty reduction has entered a new era. Mobile phones and wireless broadband enable new models of business development and service delivery. New methods of prevention, diagnosis and treatment are controlling ancient scourges such as malaria.
Improved agriculture technologies can double or even triple the yields of subsistence farmers from one season to the next. And solar power at falling costs can bring off-grid electricity where there was only kerosene before.
Harnessing these technologies, through both the private and public sectors, can help to accelerate progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
This is the focus of a new partnership between the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the Government of Ghana, and the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) in the northern savannah of Ghana.
The northern region is impoverished, considerably poorer than the areas of Ghana closer to the coast. It is further from the ports, lacking in key infrastructure, vulnerable to a range of tropical diseases and subject to alternating jolts of droughts and floods. The Government of Ghana has therefore prioritized the region for development by bringing in new technologies and investments.
A generation ago, regions like northern Ghana were typically left to their fate and that fate was marginalization.
The great Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith observed in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations that development typically begins at the coast and "it is frequently not till a long time after that those improvements extend themselves to the inland parts of the country."
Yet in 2012, we don't need to wait "a long time after." Wireless broadband, off-grid renewable electricity, and other advances in technology enable business to develop in isolated regions that were economically inaccessible just a short time ago. Online banking, libraries, school curricula, business networks, government services, and health care are already taking hold.
The MVP has been working for six years in such places in a dozen African countries. Villages have experienced tremendous gains in food production and sharp reductions in child mortality rates in that short period of time. New and exciting businesses are springing up in sites across the project.
When the project began, there were very few phones, neither landlines nor mobiles, in most of rural Africa. Today, thanks to private-sector investments, mobile phones are almost everywhere in rural Africa and, with them, countless business innovations in banking, payments, logistics and service delivery.
Other new technologies are spreading almost as fast through public-private partnerships. Until recently, the fight against malaria was hampered on several fronts: bed nets needed periodic re-treatments with insecticide that villagers could not afford; the first-line anti-malaria medicines were losing to parasite resistance; and diagnosis required laboratories that were few and far between.
But in just one decade all that has changed: insecticide-treated nets now last five years; new first-line medicines are highly effective; and diagnoses are now carried out by low-cost rapid tests that can be conducted by village workers in their community.
Donor funding by the UK, US, and others, new organizations like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, and the efforts of companies such as drug-manufacturer Novartis and bed-net maker Sumitomo Chemical, have enabled the scaling-up of the new technologies to tens of millions of households.
The malaria burden has declined by 30-40 per cent from the peak in the early 2000s. There is still more to do to reduce death from malaria - for instance, the low-cost community-health-worker systems demonstrated in the Millennium Villages are showing host-country governments how to intensify their control efforts.
Up to a decade ago, "integrated rural development" had seemed to many practitioners to be too complicated to manage. Despite what may have been true then, the new information technologies and delivery models have changed all of that.
With greatly improved information systems, real-time data collection, online data and training and improvements in how services are delivered, communities can successfully introduce and manage several improvements at once. These improvements include - but are not limited to - agriculture, health, education, water and sanitation, electrification, IT connectivity, and business development.
Even remote rural areas like northern Ghana can now more effectively join national and international supply chains in agribusiness, using improved logistics, online payments systems, and greatly improved quality control.
This integrated approach allows for achieving objectives in a more holistic way than in the past. School performance can improve not only because the schools are better but also because the children are healthier. Hunger can be reduced not only because bouts of disease are cut but also because local farming productivity and therefore nutrition are improved. And the utilization of family planning services can be dramatically increased through a combination of outreach using trained community health workers, women's empowerment, improved child survival, and higher income-earning opportunities in agribusiness for women.
In such complex development programs nothing can -- or should -- be taken for granted. The northern Ghana site will be closely monitored for progress and shortfalls by the project itself. In addition, an independent and robust evaluation of the MVP in northern Ghana will be carried out by DFID, and will provide further evidence on the impact and cost effectiveness of the MVP approach to rural development.
It's very important to learn what works and to scale up the successful approaches. It's very important to see how climate change and other challenges on the development agenda are impacting vulnerable communities. We, and the world, will observe closely the developments in the new Millennium Village Project in northern Ghana. We will no doubt observe many creative new ways that local communities, private businesses, the national government, and civil society are fighting extreme poverty and accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.
Follow Jeffrey Sachs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffDSachs
As to electric cars. We are talking about conversion of a fossil fuel to electricity to energy to pus the car.
Unless and until we are willing to address the fact that humans, like all mammals have a strong, unrelenting urge to have, to be delicate, "the big dirty".
Until we put that fact front and center, all the good ideas will go to naught.
And keep in mind, what the politics of the United States are this day.
An excellent statement of that fact was given by the Anglican priests, the Rev. Thomas Malthus.
Apparently he was not as constrained in some areas as the modern American clergy.
"The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same, that it may always be considered, in algebraic language as a given quantity".
http://quotationsbook.com/quote/36112/
London
Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard
1798
Google: "Malthus Population PDF"
It is free.
And yes I am aware he is considered disgusting, blasphemous and taboo by all right thinking people.
He did fail to predict that a good percentage of the earth's population would be making their living picking over toxic waste dumps.
See: http://www.globalpost.com/photo-galleries/planet-pic/5674706/disposable-communities-living-and-working-the-worlds-largest-trash-dumps.
Thank you for your well written, sensible response. However, the question is there time left for all you say? I doubt it.
It is certainly the majority opinion. It would even be considered radical among the T GOP.
What happens when the population of India doubles, in the next few decades.
Remember, that according to the CIA. the percentage of children under the age of five who are undernourished is 42%
Google: World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
See: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
Now both are nuclear armed. What happens when they both double their population?
My guess is that there are more air conditioners in India than solar panels.
People around the globe deserve no less chance to enjoy a fruitful life than we do. We here in America have been most fortunate because of our moderate Midwestern climate coupled with perfect dependable rainfall. Our historical success as a nation can be directly attributed to the Midwest Breadbasket. Having enough food allowed us Americans to pursue other endeavors also beneficial to our growing standard of living.
Nothing wrong with assisting rural poverty in America, either. Good point. On the other hand, with more than 300 million citizens, and the richest country in the history of the world, we can do both. I agree with you, even more so, Congress, states, local municipalities, charities should all place highest priority lending a hand to impoverished people everywhere in the U.S.. Access to healthcare for everyone is a great place to begin.
You and I agree, much more can be done. We have a political infrastructure set up to deliver, that is, if and when we finally join together, voting in our collective best interest to solve our most basic national problems.
Good to see Prof. Sachs keeping his purity.
To alleviate your concerns, which are valid, reflect back on history. Every industrialized country eventually slows population growth. It's a natural tendency. Once basic survival allows for other educational pursuits, rational people like yourself emerge and begin to raise questions, other people within emerging cultures acknowledge to be a valid concern. Seemingly, historically, cultures tend to scale back population growth for a variety of reasons. Expect emerging countries to do the same.
Plus, as you say, Gates Foundation is addressing the problem, too.
During the next century, green tech, solar revolution will eventually reduce CO2 emissions, and lead transition to electric cars. 20% increase in cost of energy production for carbon capture will eventually be absorbed, while emerging technology will provide other beneficial energy production avenues as well. At some point, even desalinization plants will likely be affordable, solving water shortage problems allowing increased food production on more than plentiful arid land throughout the world.
Though your concerns are valid, all isn't quite a dire as it seems. History will tell you that too. Then again, maybe next week, Yellowstone Caldera erupts, or an asteroid size of Manhattan appears traveling 30k/m/hr straight for us! Know what I mean? Can't worry about everything.
Thank you for your well written, sensible response. However, the question is there time left for all you say? I doubt it.
What happens when the population of India doubles, in the next few decades.
Remember, that according to the CIA. the percentage of children under the age of five who are undernourished is 42%
Google: World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
See: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
Now India and Pakistan hate each other, and both are nuclear armed. What happens when they both double their population?
Yes, it is possible. But all you suggest requires massive energy inputs. We discovered that the use of solar energy to produce corn, to produce ethanol was a loser. More energy was used than was provided.
I learned in High School physics that the conversion of one form of energy to another wastes energy.
As to electric cars. We are talking about conversion of a fossil fuel to electricity to energy to pus the car.
Yes, yes, there is a tiny bit of solar power used for electric generation.
Unless and until we are willing to address the fact that humans, like all mammals have a strong, unrelenting urge to have sex.
Until we put that fact front and center, all the good ideas will go to naught.
And keep in mind, what the politics of the United States are this day.
For an excellent discussion of human sexuality see, of all people the Rev.
Thomas Malthus.
"The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to
I am not sure my Reply to you went through. In any case, let me know if it did, and if it did, what you think.
After all your good works results in the doubling of the population of Ghana within two generations, are you going to redouble your "good works".
Ref: World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html
j'accuse.
You like all of the self satisfied "international social workers" who get such satisfaction from their work, are committing Crimes Against Humanity by introducing Death Control, without introducing Birth Control.
I shouldn't be so harsh. I know that the discussion of where babies come from, and what human activities precede the birth of a baby are taboo subjects, and, anyone out of your area of expertise, I shouldn't be so harsh.
Ref: World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html
www.worldometers.info.
No doubt you have a profound and unshakable belief that all the fossil fuel inputs from the failing Green Revolution will save the day.
And of course, as they get "better off" humans lose their libido.
What you are proposing is putting in place the need for much more starvation, infant mortality and suffering in the near future. But of course, it will create much more work for the "best and the brightest" like yourself, to figure out what's wrong.
Ghana now has a populating of 25,241,898, and a population growth rate of 1.787%. That means that as it stands now, by the August, 2014 Ghana will have one million more citizens, without any expansion of its territory.
In the very short run, that may "will slash poverty, hunger and disease" Plus it will put a lot of money in the hands of the Ghanaian elite, and the international social workers.
The beauty of that is that if all goes according to plan, the population of Ghana will be over 50,000,000 in ~ 40 years.
Of course without any increase in arable land.
That is really wonderful, generations of your graduate students will have plenty of work to do to alleviate all that increased poverty, hunger and disease.
Because you are in denial of the fact that the carrying capacity of any environment is NOT infinite,
Dr. Sachs:
I am so glad to hear that your thinking is in confromity to what the "best and brightest have been triying to do since "Taking Up the White Man's Burden".
You state, "Donor funding by the UK, US, and others, new organizations like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, and the efforts of companies such as drug-manufacturer Novartis and bed-net maker Sumitomo Chemical, have enabled the scaling-up of the new technologies to tens of millions of households"
"The malaria burden has declined by 30-40 per cent from the peak in the early 2000s. There is still more to do to reduce death from malaria - for instance, the low-cost community-health-worker systems demonstrated in the Millennium Villages are showing host-country governments how to intensify their control efforts"
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, West Virginia, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles...
Highest poverty levels in this country are referred to as "red states" in political lingo. Just using the states in this country as your data sample the state governments dominated by the ideologically-driven right-wing factions are the ones who have failed everyone at every level.
Voting for a right-winger is a vote for failure, a vote for perpetual poverty, a vote for insanity.
You are partially correct. However, like most organism H. sapiens did fairly well before the introduction of fossil fuels into their environment.
For an entertaining, but accurate look at making it on little, and enjoying and abundant life. See:
"The Gods Must Be Crazy". Available at Amazon. You can rent it for $2.99.
The anthropologist Leslie White spoke the truth when he said, "With the advent of agriculture, property rights replaced human rights.
For an update on that Google: Monsanto Indian Suicides.