Or “on the ground”, to use Professor Sachs‘ own choice of cliche. Having sketched out human economic history, the causes of poverty and his own history of economic fiddling, the director of the Earth Institute and author of The End of Poverty devotes its final few chapters to a detailed analysis of the steps sufficient to, in his view, end extreme poverty by 2025, starting by achieving the millennium development goal of halving it by 2015. He starts by looking at the interventions at local level that can turn poverty around.

First, Sachs looks at rural poverty, in an area called Sauri in Western Kenya. He offers a detailed summary of the combination of challenges facing the villagers there: AIDS, Malaria, poor crop yields, a closed medical centre, a school starved of materials, malnutrition. One particularly interesting observation is that, it seems, things have got worse. With the TV images of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-5 part of our collective memory, it’s easy to think of poverty in Africa as a sort of naturally occuring state that has always been. But in particular areas, once-fertile land is failing to produce crops, or (as in Sauri) increases in the cost of fertilizer have made farming much harder.

But rather than dwelling of problems, Sachs focuses on the interventions that could improve the situation.

This village could be rescued, and could achieve the Millennium Development Goals, but not by itself. Survival depends on addressing a series of specific challenges… all of these challenges can be met, with known, proven, reliable, and appropriate technologies. (p232)

In particular, he outlines the “big five” interventions that, he argues, could be of benefit across across rural africa.

  • Agricultural inputs. Improvements in fertilizer, irrigation and seeds could triple agricultural production, ending extreme hunger in the area immediately. Such changes don’t all need funding forever. For example, nitrogen-fixing trees, which produce nutrients from the atmosphere that plants can feed on and improve fertility, can be put in at the loss of one growing season - so a one-off investment could lead to a permanent gain in productivity.
  • Investment in health. A clinic, equipped with a doctor, a nurse, some antimalaria bed nets, skilled birth attendants and other materials could transform local health.
  • Investments in education. Children in Sauri do have access to school, but free meals would increase attendance and achievement, while extra vocational schooling would teach kids valuable skills like farming equipment maintenance. Extra classes for adults in things like HIV prevention and hygiene could reap big benefits too.
  • Power, transport and communications. A huge part of the problems of rural poverty are those of isolation: from electricity, motor transport, and telephones. A diesel generator, a pump for a wells, a truck, a mobile phone: just one such addition per village could have a huge effect, for example letting ill children be driven to hospital.
  • Safe drinking water and sanitation. Dirty water spreads disease, lack of water worsens malnutrition, and travelling hours each day carrying water compounds the health problems of African women. A mixture of rain-collecting and wells could provide a range of reliable water sources.

Address these five issues, Sachs argues, and villages like those in Sauri could escape poverty. Best of all, it’s comparatively cheap. The big five interventions in Sauri, Sachs states, would cost $350 000 per year for the next few years, which with a population of 5 000 equals $70/yr.

Sachs is vague about the duration this support would be needed for: his estimate mixes one-off investments, like those in nitrogen-fixing trees, to ongoing commitments like fertilizer. However, he argues, what’s certain is that “sooner or later, these investments would pay for themselves… in direct commercial returns.” (p235) For example, while fertilizer should be given free for a few years, he argues, soon rising crop productivity will mean villagers can take over paying for it.

To be honest, there’s a tad too much vaguery in Sachs’ discussions of how long support will be required for. A key criticism of Sachs’ plans for poverty - the so-called “big push” of investment - is that the detail of how to move communities from dependency on aid, to self-sufficiency, is lacking. But I’ll give him a chance to address this more later in the book, and discuss it more later.

What Sachs makes clear is that, right now, donors are not funding the big five interventions. Kenya, Sachs notes, spent (at the time of writing in late 1994) six times as much of debt payments each year than it received in aid. Too often, he notes, donors don’t support the kind of extensive interventions required: when Kenya proposed a national health insurance scheme, for example, donors criticised the idea.

The reason for donors’ excessive caution, Sachs argues, is fear of corruption. But rather than complaining about corruption, Sachs argues, donors should practically help avoid it,

not by moralising and finger pointing but by the installation of computer systems, published accounts… higher pay for senior managers so that they do not have to live off bribes… continued support for the government’s… efforts to improve the judicial system, empowerment of local villages to oversee the provision of public services, and some humility of the part of donors. (p237)

Donors and recipient governments should work together to develop management systems that ensure money is spent effectively. In particular, village culture can prevent waste and corruption through close oversight. At local level money should be controlled in part by local committees.

If donors recognise the potential for small investments to transform lives, and think practically about how to ensure money reaches those it’s intended for, then the most serious problems of rural poverty in Africa can be addressed.

But what of urban poverty? Sachs describes his experiences of Mumbai, India, but his observations apply well to urban Africa. Here, Sachs argues, the problems are different. After all, the serious logistical issues facing development in rural areas -the high cost of bringing electricity, roads, and communication to remote villages, for example - are less serious.

Water taps can be provided from the main city pipes. Electricity can be tapped into from the power grid rather than supplied by a standalone generator. In densely populated urban areas, access to schools and clinics can be easier to arrange. Doctors and nurses abound in Mumbai in comparison to… rural Kenya. (p241)

Instead, Sachs argues, the problems in urban areas are those of “empowerment” and financing. Impoverished communities need to develop a collective voice in which to lobby for improvements in their environment. For example, Sachs describes the role of collective organisations of slum dwellers in Mumbai in lobbying for their relocation away from train tracks to safer ground. One slum-dwellers’ organisation has even secured land developer status, winning it access to specially allocated funds for real estate development. Bluntly, Sachs argues that the investments the urban poor need are possible now - they just need to work collectively to demand them. Once such collective organisations have secured investment, they can help plan and manage the way services are run, just like in rural areas.

In fact, the basic pattern Sachs lays out is the same for urban and rural poverty: the big five interventions, with input and control by local people through collective organisations. The difference is just where the challenges are: the need in rural areas is well known, but donors need to meet the need for funding; in urban areas, the cost of action is lower, but the poor can appear to vanish amidst the pace of city life and must demand their due.

These patterns, Sachs argues, could be replicated across Africa. The challenge comes in scaling up from local level to planning and co-ordination on a national level, without losing local scrutiny and input. It’s these challenges Sachs addresses in the next chapter.

First, though, we’re going to take a closer look at the viability of Sachs’ proposals on the ground. Following his visit, Sachs’ Earth Institute secured funding to try out his development plan in Sauri, Kenya, and a similar area in Tanzania. These so-called “Millennium Villages” are laboratories for local development ideas and the best opportunity to test the effectiveness of Sachs’ ideas. So next time, we’ll have a look at the reports and literature and see how they’re getting on.