SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS JEFFREY SACHS SPECIAL ADVISER ON MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS JEFFREY SACHS SPECIAL ADVISER

ON MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The Secretary-General has appointed Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, as Special Adviser on the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals are eight key development objectives set out in the Millennium Declaration that was endorsed by over 160 world leaders at the historic United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000.  The goals comprise time-bound global targets to improve health, education and the environment across the world, with the overarching goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

Professor Sachs will work closely with Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the United Nations Development Group, who has been asked by the Secretary-General to coordinate the campaign for the Millennium Development Goals within the United Nations system.   Mr. Malloch Brown is currently preparing the outlines of a new global campaign, due to be formally launched later this year, designed to help the world community achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Professor Sachs’s duties will focus on gathering and commissioning new research and developing novel approaches for costing and partnership that will help provide practical plans of action aimed at achieving the goals.  This project will be entirely funded by voluntary contributions.

Professor Sachs recently served as Chairman of the Commission on Macro-Economics and Health, set up by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization, which last month published a detailed report on the importance of health in global economic development and a blueprint for achieving the Millennium Goals in health.

Professor Sachs will be working out of Harvard and New York.  His initial term of appointment will be for one year.

* *** *