Excerpts from The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, by Jeffrey D. Sachs, Penguin Books, 2005.

Chapter 1 A Global Family Portrait p. 18 If economic development is a ladder with higher rungs representing steps up the path to economic well-being, there are roughly one billion people around the world, one sixth of humanity, who [are]: too ill, hungry, or destitute even to get a foot on the first rung of the development ladder. These people are the poorest of the poor, or the extreme poor of the planet. They all live in developing countries (poverty does exist in rich countries, but it is not extreme poverty). p. 19 The greatest tragedy of our time is that one sixth of humanity is not even on the development ladder. A large number of the extreme poor are caught in a poverty trap, unable on their own to escape from extreme material deprivation. They are trapped by disease, physical isolation, climate stress, environmental degradation, and by extreme poverty itself. Chapter 2 The Spread of Economic Prosperity p. 29 Since all parts of the world had a roughly comparable starting point in 1820 (all very poor by current standards), todays vast inequalities reflect the fact that some parts of the world achieved modern economic growth while others did not. Todays vast income inequalities illuminate two centuries of highly uneven patterns of economic growth. p. 31 Technology has been the main force behind the long-term increases in income in the rich world, not exploitation of the poor. That news is very good indeed because it suggests that all of the world, including todays laggard regions, has a reasonable hope of reaping the benefits of technological advance. Economic development is not a zero-sum game in which the winnings of some are inevitably mirrored by the losses of others. This game is one that everybody can win. Chapter 3 Why Some Countries Fail to Thrive p. 56 In economic growth, eight major categories of problems can cause an economy to stagnate or decline. [1. The Poverty Trap] When poverty is very extreme, the poor do not have the ability by themselves to get out of the mess. They are too poor to save for the future and thereby accumulate the capital per person that could pull them out of their current misery. p. 57 [2. Physical Geography] Many of the worlds poorest countries are severely hindered by high transport costs because they are landlocked; situated in high mountain ranges; or lack navigable rivers, long coastlines, or good natural harbors. [also arid conditions, or ecological conditions that favor killer diseases like malaria]. P. 59 [3. Fiscal Trap] [T]he government may lack the resources to pay for the infrastructure on which economic growth depends. [4. Governance Failures] p. 60 When governments fail in any of these tasks leaving huge gaps in infrastructure, or raising corruption to levels that impair economic activity, or failing to ensure domestic peace the economy is sure to fail, and often to fail badly. [5. Cultural Barriers] Cultural or religious norms in the society may block the role of women or religious or ethnic minorities. p. 61 [6. Geopolitics] Trade barriers erected by foreign countries can impede a poor countrys economic development. [7. Lack of Innovation] There is a huge difference between rich and poor countries in their tendency to innovate. Rich countries have a big market, which increases the incentive for innovation, brings new technologies to market, further raises productivity and expands the size of the market, and creates new incentives for innovation. p. 65 [8. The Demographic Trap] The poorest places are also the places where families have the most numbers of children, and where the populations continue to soar. High population growth leads to deeper poverty, and deeper poverty contributes to high fertility rates. Chapter 4 Clinical Economics p. 83 The key to clinical economics is a thorough differential diagnosis [working through a checklist to identify the true underlying cause of the symptom], followed by an appropriate treatment regimen. Chapter 5 Bolivias High-Altitude Hyperinflation [Describes working with Bolivian government in mid-1980s to stabilize value of currency, get debt to foreign banks written down, tax the wealthy, and establish an emergency social fund through World Bank funding]
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Chapter 6 Polands Return to Europe [Describes experience in late 1980s helping Poland establish a market economy, return to trade on a market basis with Europe, adopt laws, institutions and governance patterns of Western Europe, in order to become a member of the European Community.] Chapter 7 Reaping the Whirlwind: Russias Struggle for Normalcy p. 136 My essential advice to Russia [in the early 1990s] was to move quickly on the key reforms that were possible such as stabilization and market liberalization and to move definitively, although not overnight, on privatization. Aim for normalcy rather than uniqueness, we kept repeating. We also urged them to get all the external financial help possible. Chapter 8 China: Catching Up After Half a Millennium p. 150 Certain dates stand out in Chinas economic history: 1434, 1839, 1898, 1937, 1949, 1978. Understanding these dates, spanning half a millennium, clarifies the puzzle of Chinas epochal swings from the worlds technological leader to an impoverished country to a great success story of unprecedented rapid economic growth. [Emperor closing off trade voyages; Great Britain attacks in Opium Wars; reformers executed; Japan attacks; Peoples Republic of China established; Teng Hsiaopings ascension to power and opening of China.] Chapter 9 Indias Market Reforms: The Triumph of Hope Over Fear p. 176 [India gained independence from Britain on August 15, 1947] Thus began Indias tryst with destiny, in Nehrus evocative phrase, as well as its rendezvous with its own twin demons colonial rule, which left India allergic to international trade and to foreign investment, and extreme social divisions, which left India weakened internally as well as competitively vis--vis the rest of the world. [Discussion of how India became part of the global wave of market reforms from mid-1991 on.] Chapter 10 The Voiceless Dying: Africa and Disease p. 189 Western governments enforced draconian budget policies in Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. The IMF and World Bank virtually ran the economic policies of the debt-ridden continent, recommending the regimens of budgetary belt tightening known technically as structural adjustment programs. These programs had little scientific merit and produced even fewer results. By the start of the twenty-first century, Africa was poorer than during the late 1960s, when the IMF and World Bank had arrived on the African scene, with disease, population growth, and environmental degradation spiraling out of control. p. 190 The one thing that the West would not do, however, was invest in long-term African economic development. The die was cast in the 1960s, when senior U.S. policy makers decided that the United States would not support a Marshall Plan type of policy for Africa, even though such an effort was precisely what was needed to build the infrastructure for long-term growth. It was not that U.S. officials rejected the diagnosis they knew it was needed but the political leadership was not willing to pay the price. Chapter 11 The Millennium, 9/11, and the United Nations p. 210 [Millennium Assembly at the United Nations in September 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented a document on the great challenges facing global society: extreme poverty, pandemic disease, environmental harm, war and civil conflict. Led to the eight Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs.] p. 213 The first seven goals call for sharp cuts in poverty, disease, and environmental degradation. The eighth goal is essentially a commitment of global partnership, a compact of rich and poor countries to work together to achieve the first seven goals. The Millennium Development Goals could, no doubt, engender some cynicism as well as hope. [Previously] The rich world had famously committed to the target of 0.7 percent of GNP devoted to official development assistance (ODA), direct financial aid to poor countries, yet the share of financial aid as a proportion of rich-world GNP had actually declined from 0.3 to 0.2 percent during the 1990s.

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Chapter 12 On-the-Ground Solutions for Ending Poverty p. 232 African safari guides speak of the Big Five animals to watch for on the savannah. The international development community should speak of the Big Five development interventions that would spell the difference between hunger, disease, and death and health and economic development. Sauris [village in Kenya] Big Five, identified by the villagers as well as by the UN Millennium project are: agricultural inputs; investments in basic health; investments in education; power, transport, and communications services; safe drinking water and sanitation. p. 243 In short, we need a strategy for scaling up the investments that will end poverty, including a system of governance that empowers the poor while holding them accountable. In each low-income country, it is time to design a poverty reduction strategy that can meet this challenge. Chapter 13 Making the Investments Needed to End Poverty p. 246 The solution is where foreign help, in the form of official development assistance (ODA), helps to jump-start the process of capital accumulation, economic growth, and rising household incomes. If the foreign assistance is substantial enough, and lasts long enough, the capital stock rises sufficiently to lift households above subsistence. At that point, the poverty trap is broken. Chapter 14 A Global Compact to End Poverty p. 268 Poor countries have no guaranteed right to meet the Millennium Development Goals or to receive development assistance from the rich countries. They only have that right if they themselves carry through on their commitments to good governance. The expansion of aid is predicated on a serious plan of action, combined with a demonstrated will to carry it out in a transparent and honest manner. Chapter 15 Can the Rich Afford to Help the Poor? p. 299 The bottom line of about $135 to $195 billion per year for the period 2005 to 2015 is about .44 to .54 percent of the rich-world GNP each year during the forthcoming decade, significantly less than the 0.7 percent of GNP promised in ODA. The point is that the Millennium Development Goals can be financed within the bounds of the official development assistance that the donor countries have already promised. Chapter 16 Myths and Magic Bullets p. 309 Napoleon famously declared, History is a fable often told. The same can be said about much of development thinking. [misconceptions and prejudices are rampant, e.g. that African aid has been money down the drain, that anti-AIDS drug treatment would fail because Africans dont know what Western time is] Chapter 17 Why We Should Do It p. 328 Many Americans do not see economic assistance as having much to do with their national security. For that they have put their faith in the military. The United States is spending thirty times more on the military than on foreign assistance in 2004, $450 billion compared with $15 billion. p. 331 Foreign policy strategists have long recognized that acts of altruism ending the slave trade, supporting countries in their independence from empire, extending assistance for reconstruction and development, providing humanitarian relief after natural disasters are also acts of enlightened selfinterest. The problem in the United States has not been public opposition to increased foreign assistance, but a lack of political leadership even to inform the public about its importance, and to ask the public for greater efforts. Chapter 18 Our Generations Challenge p. 367 Great social forces, Robert Kennedy powerfully reminded us, are the mere accumulation of individual actions. His words are more powerful today than ever: p. 368 Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Let the future say of our generation that we sent forth mighty currents of hope, and that we worked together to heal the world.

Book summary courtesy of the Progressive Womens Alliance of West Michigan.