Digital Portfolio 1: Executive Summery on Africa

Jeffery Sachs, the world renowned Economist has saved many countries from falling into complete economic turmoil, believes we can eradicate poverty from the world forever. His "shock therapy" treatment of countries emerging from communism has saved many nations, including Bolivia and Poland. He is a brilliant macro-econ mist that graduated from Harvard, with a PHD at the young age of 26, began to make a name for himself. Now, his new project is world poverty, and how to stop it. People who have met Jeffery Sachs describe him as "A squeaky wheel that roars" and "a pest", however, he takes these as compliments and takes them with stride. He visits many developing nations in an effort to see the hardships that people live in, and the amount of money that they live on. Sachs plan is if we were to spend 250 billion a year and we would eradicate poverty completely. However, it is not that easy. For example, the US spent more then 499 billion dollars on military last year, and only 22.7 billion on foreign aid. To Sachs, this is inexcusable, because we should be using that money to completely eradicate poverty from the world. According to Sachs, "Lack of five cent Immunization so that hundreds of thousands of children dying of vaccine-preventable diseases." As in the famous MTV documentary "The diary of Angelina Jolie and Jeffery Sachs in Africa" Sachs hoped the horrors that were shown in every village they visited would shock people into action. For example, 12 year old boys who are only 4 feet tall. In my opinion, if we raise any money we should send it to an organization, even the smallest contribution could help people live without poverty. For example, only 8 dollars could buy a mosquito net to help stop malaria in a small village. The US however, still spends less on poverty. According to Sachs, "The basic truth is that for less than a percent of the income of the rich world, nobody has to die of poverty on the planet." If only the rich governments of the world would listen, then maybe Sachs would be satisfied.