Here is what Jeffrey Sachs did not disclose in the interview. First, that Sauri is not poor, but it was impoverished by the closure of the Kisumu Cotton Mills, and other industrial capacity, following high level corruption, and debt/aid issues related to the World Bank. The people of Nyanza Province found themselves without a source of livelihood. They were forced back into subsistence, and extreme poverty.

Second is that Sauri is very close to Lake Victoria, where there is abundance of fish. Sachs did not discuss why he is not encouraging people of Sauri to get fish from the lake. That beats reason, sincerely!

Third, he spoke of getting a philanthropist to give fertilizer for helping crops to grow. The problem is that, it is not that there is no fertilizer in Kenya, or people of Sauri cannot be trained to us their locally homegrown technology, such as biomass, to revitalize their soils. He did not tell us from who he will be buying the fertilizer for the crops, and how flooding the country with foreign fertilizers will disrupt the local capacity to produce fertilizers. He has adopted similar approach to malaria control, raising funds in the west, and flooding local markets with foreign products, that come into the country (see http://www.kdnc.org/print.php?sid=37). The problem with that model is that it has effectually put millions of people out of business, effectively pushing them deeper into poverty. It is arguably true that actions like that are the real cause of extreme poverty, as we know it today. How smart is that in trying to achieve end of poverty.

We (Kenyans) do not want to go through this cycle. We insist that if Sachs wants to work there, he needs to think through his plans much better that he is doing. The serial plot he is passionately describing, of doing one thing (say importing fertilizer for the people of Sauri) and then consider helping them develop sustainable thinking later lacks the appreciation of systems dynamic. It is fundamental fact that every action results in reactions elsewhere in the system. Disrupting one area, without creating a balancing loop on other areas has lead to massive poverty in the third world, as we know it today.

For more views about this topic, see James Theuri’s commentary.

http://www.kdnc.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=45&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

or

http://www.kdnc.org/print.php?sid=45

&

http://www.kdnc.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=11

The long and the short of it is that the world acording to Bono Sachs’s overrated student and propangandist is wrong. Debt relief they say is a solution. Well the corrupt goverments have figured it out: just run up debt and wait til the next round of debt forgiveness. I do like some of Sach’s observations -small approaches sometimes work; I do not like his gratuitous jabs at the President. (As I remember correctly the folks who ran plans into the World Trade Center were quite affluent; as the the remark about the most militarized administration someone would be wise to tell the professor we are at war.)

For a more balanced view of development economics one should read –with Sachs’s platitudes in mind — the critical work of William Easterly. It’s too bad that Sachs is smugly dismissive of his critics. Who’s really waving their arms here Professor Sachs? Who’s really delusional about foreign aid, I suspect it’s not Sach’s critics. In the final draw, Easterly gets the best of Sachs. See

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64541-2005Mar24.html

For Easterly’s review of THE END OF POVERTY see

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25562-2005Mar10?language=printer

I missed part of the show, so maybe this was covered previously. If so, my apologies.

How about caring Americans push to reinstate the “Life Tax� on estates over (pick a number) $10,000000 at a rate of (another number) 15% for the next $90,000,000 and then increase it etc. with the funds raised going to support lives in Africa?

Thursday Night: Kenya

With Jeffrey Sachs. As always, jump on the comment thread or call us, (877) 673 6767.

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