Nina Munk

The story of Jeffrey Sachs rise (and fall?). Sachs became a celebrity as an economic shock therapist in Bolivia in the late 1980's and then in Poland and Russia. He then turned his considerable attention to poverty and in particular Africa, wanting to jump-start economic development there. He often argued on the basis of cost-effectiveness, as with the case for controlling malaria, but seems to have been consistently overoptimistic about how to obtain and keep up funding. In addition to disregarding advice on how to implement his changes, in particular on creating local ownership, controlling corruption and creating accountability. Add to this a lack of any strategy for measuring results, it is no surprise that the debate about the impact of Sachs' highly advertised Millennium Villages have become heated. A piece (by Michael Clemence and Gabriel Demombynes, both involved in the debate) about what can be learned about the need for transparency from that controversy can be found here: http://international.cgdev.org/publication/new-transparency-development-economic....

In the book, Sachs comes off as motivated and engaging, but also as righteous, preachy, and someone not tackling criticism or dealing with real-world constraints. Sachs drew much criticism for the effects of his shock therapies, but I believe his approach there was the right one: Acknowledging that there are trade-offs and costs that must be incurred, but that the alternative is worse. When trying to do too much, one may easily end up getting done nothing.… (altro)