PRESS CONFERENCE on Millennium Development Goals by special adviser

The world was going to get the job done on the Millennium Development Goals, which would be the great legacy of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals, said today at Headquarters.

Briefing correspondents on the progress in the fight against poverty at the end of the year and what urgent action needed to be taken to achieve the Goals, he said that the Secretary-General had initiated the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, and had been spearheading the efforts to accomplish the goals ever since.  Mr. Sachs said he had been serving as Special Adviser since 2002 and had directed the United Nations Millennium Project, which had recently ended.  That Project had been tasked with identifying practical means to achieve the Goals, which were “life and death” goals.  Achieving them was of special importance, as it would not only save millions of lives every year, but would also make the world a vastly safer place than it was today.

He said the Goals had taken an ever more important place in the organizing strategies of poor countries, civil society, donor agencies and international organizations.  The 2005 World Summit had confirmed them and they had now become part and parcel of every aspect of development efforts.  Even villages in Africa knew about them.  Notable progress had been made by focusing on practical steps that could be taken.  Now, practical programmes were being implemented, such as disease control.  Last week, President Bush had hosted a summit on malaria in the White House, and had called on United States society to get behind the fight against malaria.  By 2010, malaria could be under control in Africa, by distributing bed nets, spraying with insecticides and treating sick people in an organized way.

Other positive developments were taking place in the fields of access to antiretroviral drugs and of agriculture in Africa.  The Gates and Rockefeller Foundations were working together for a “green revolution” in Africa, in order to multiply food production.  The fight against poverty was expanding, as new major donors were coming aboard, such as China, and Arab countries, through the Islamic Development Bank.  There was more South/South cooperation, such as the Brazilian Government working in African countries.

“We can end this year on a note of optimism”, he said.  The biggest reason for optimism was that “we are a world that is rich in knowledge, science, technology, and proven approaches to fighting poverty, hunger and disease”.

Asked about the fact that pledges were made (such as Spain recently offering $700 million towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals) but that no money was received, Mr. Sachs urged the media to keep an eye on the ball and to report accurately the commitments and gaps.

Coordination was in short supply, he answered to another question.  There was coordination in important areas, however.  Spain had pledged the money through the United Nations and its country teams.  There were two dozen donor Governments and thousands of active organizations.  The Goals, however, were a coordinating mechanism that encouraged countries to implement a national strategy.  In that way, coordination took place within countries.  The Goals had quantified targets, there were metrics used.  The bottom line, against which progress could be measured, was well-defined. A slow start had been made in 2000, but there was now more understanding of what it took to achieve the Goals.  In the fight against malaria, for instance, bed nets could be distributed within months.

Addressing a number of questions on the link between sustainable development and climate change, he said it was amazing that even in the fast growing countries there was not much progress on sustainable development regarding the environment.  Sustainable development would be the great challenge of the coming decades.  There was great stress on water, energy, climate, habitat, fisheries, species extinction, and so forth.  Commitments had been made in the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention to Combat Desertification.  Those treaties were not being implemented, with a profound impact.  Integrating the Millennium Development Goals with the environmental and health challenges was one of the greatest priorities.  They were all interconnected and could not be fulfilled unless each piece of the puzzle was in place.

Calling the environment the biggest challenge facing humanity, he said there was a commitment to significantly reduce the loss of biodiversity by 2010.  The world did not know about it and the goal was not being achieved.  If that continued, even gains against poverty would get “washed away” by the tropical storms, massive flooding, droughts, loss of snow melt, degradation of desert lands and so on.

Continuing, he said the world had two ways of feeling about it.  One was a general lack of attention, which was a tragedy.  On the other hand, for those who were paying attention, there was often a feeling of the problem being too big to touch.  However, like the Millennium Development Goals, if the problems were “unpacked” and looked at in a systematic and practical way, they were solvable problems.  High-minded goals and rhetoric did not solve problems; the practical underpinnings did, such as offering incentives to combat deforestation.  People were working around the clock to advise the incoming Secretary-General on climate change.  A report from some 10 businesses would come out in February.

He was completely against the idea put forward by some, that climate change should be put aside and that money should be used to focus on poverty.  It was a mistake to think that poor countries could be helped without addressing climate change.  “The costs of taking action are much, much smaller than the costs of inaction,” he said.  If all donors were like the Scandinavian and Benelux countries, there would be no problem.

The problem of malaria in Africa could be brought under control by 2010, but not solved, because of ecological circumstances, he answered to another question.  Transmission of the disease could not be avoided, as in some other countries and islands, but progress could be made by mass distribution of bed nets –- some 300 million -- and treatment of illness.  There was now an innovative approach of combining distribution of bed nets with measles inoculation.

Addressing other problems of Africa, he said it was true that nearly all of Africa was off track on almost all Goals.  Still, there was reason for optimism.  The alliance for a green revolution could double food production in two to three years, and triple it in five to six years.  The focus on agriculture had been absent for almost 20 years, even though most people in Africa were farmers.  Some donors had even said, “We don’t do agriculture”, while people lacked access to fertilizer.

Mr. Sachs objected strongly to the “great myth of our time” that massive amounts of money had been “gushing” into Africa and was lost because of corruption and lawlessness.  That myth played into the “worst stereotypes”, he said in answer to some correspondents’ concerns.  First of all, there was almost no money going to Africa.  An illusion of a massive amount had been created by adding up all the money spent on Africa over 60 years and declaring it “a huge sum”.  Then the Africans get blamed for stealing that non-existing money that never arrived. A lot of money was being spent on honoraria for consultants, but not in the field.

Good aid was not about money, he continued, but about providing the tools to empower poor people to be more productive; helping the farmers to grow more food and to let their families sleep under bed nets.

Answering questions about his salary as an adviser at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), he denied he was being paid $70,000 a year.  He took a symbolic salary of $1 per year.  As head of the UN Millennium Project, which was over by now, he had taken a “modest salary” for four years working around the clock.  He stated that he was not in it for the money, and would never be in it for the money.

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