Jeffrey Sachs: "The Difference between Mr. Easterly and Myself is that I'm Actually Trying to Get Something Done"

An Easterly lesson? A post not too long ago, "Africa's Poverty Trap" gave William Easterly's views on development in Africa, including negative comments about the work of Jeffery Sachs. In this interview, Jefferey Sachs responds to Easterly's general criticisms of his work, and he comments on the contributions of William Easterly to the African development effort:

Lunch with the FT: Jeffrey Sachs, by Chris Giles, Financial Times (free): I am due to meet Jeffrey Sachs in his choice of restaurant... Sachs is in London to deliver the first of five BBC Reith Lectures, a sought-after honour for academics. The lectures give a chance to talk to a worldwide radio audience. "[The lecture] is unique as a global discussion. It's hard to think of another way to reach such a wide audience," Sachs says... Referring to the BBC, he says: "They quote a 100 million audience - rather more than that, a 150 million audience." Then he asks me if I know how many people will listen. I haven't a clue, I admit, but tell him that the audience figure might need an "up to" added before the numbers. ...

Audience size clearly matters to Sachs. His website says he is "widely considered to be the leading international economic adviser of his generation", and his mission is to solve the problems of poverty, disease, global warming and globalisation. Although his current views are highly controversial, he knows that the bigger the audience, the bigger the impact. ... He campaigns for a better world, and is certain he knows how to get one. ...

I want to talk first about his role in advising governments on economic reforms in Latin America and eastern Europe. There was a time, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when no self-respecting government of a middle-income or ex-communist country would instigate a reform programme without Sachs's advice. So, ... I rather blunder into my first question: "Looking at the countries you advised in the early 1990s, those countries are not now doing very well, are they?"

"Oh, no. That's not right," he retorts. ... We embark on a tour of the world's economies, starting in Latin America. ... Latin America is doing much better than is often thought, he argues: "I'm optimistic about Brazil. And if you look at a map, being optimistic about Brazil takes you a long way to being optimistic about the whole of Latin America. I don't lose huge sleep over Latin America - it's at peace, it's not riven by terrorism, it's democratic and it has made huge strides in human development. What have been hugely unequal and divided societies are becoming slowly more equal, and even very deep ethnic and racial divisions are being ameliorated through democratic politics."

The same cannot be said about Russia, I say. Sachs replies by telling me how Poland was a case of successful reform, which has now led to a normal country embraced within the European Union. How did it achieve success? "The essence of what they wanted to do was right, it was based on sound fundamentals. What I tried to do was to add the economics to go around it." ...

I bring the subject round to Russia again. "I advised Russia for two years from December 1991 to January 1994," Sachs says defensively. "It was an extremely frustrating period for me." The problem, he says, was not that good ideas were tried and failed, but that neither the US nor the powerful elites in Russia wanted to try sensible economic reforms. The US, he says, failed because it wanted a weak Russia, while the Kremlin's corrupt efforts to stop the communists' re-emergence in the mid 1990s led to the transfer of the Russian state's assets into the hands of a tiny elite.

"When I watch all of this now," Sachs says, "it is the ... triumph of politics over economics." He is warming to a theme that forms the backbone of his thinking on almost every issue - good economic solutions will work if only politics doesn't get in the way...

The theme continues as we move on to talking about poverty in Africa. This has been the focus of his more recent work. Immediately, he shows his anger at those who claim aid fails because Africa remains desperately poor, even after some $2,300bn of aid - the figure comes from Professor William Easterly of New York University. Sachs manages a masterly dismissal; he calculates the amount as only $16 per poor person per year over the past 60 years. "I see the number and say, well, that's a pretty modest sum. The rest of the world sees the same number and says that's a horrendous failure that's nearly bankrupted us."

Worse, Sachs thinks that Easterly's criticisms of aid are having an impact on giving. "The difference between Mr Easterly and myself is that I'm actually trying to get something done practically... But I know that since he has launched this tirade, it makes it harder to do." He insists that for $16 a person a year, aid has "done extremely well". ...

"People are dying in large numbers. The triumph of politics over economics is not that money is being lost in Africa, it is that money is not going in." He vehemently denies that big aid has been tried before and not worked, and challenges me to name studies proving him wrong, knowing full well that I can't.

We move on to talk about a specific project Sachs is currently involved in, Millennium Villages, where his ideas on fertilisers, malarial bed-nets and the like are tried on the ground. My less-than-ecstatic reaction to his reports of their success is clearly the same as that of many aid agencies. It instantly raises his hackles. I suggest there are many examples where success in pilots does not translate into something that can be replicated on a large scale... "I'm sorry," he is almost shouting now. "That, I disagree with completely. That's preposterous."

I ... counter that it is equally preposterous to insist they will work. "I know," he says, "but how do you actually do something in life? Do you list all the things that may go wrong and then decide we won't do it, or do you actually try?"

We talk about global warming. It's easily solvable, Sachs insists, because the costs of doing something about carbon emissions are exaggerated - so people will soon realise that they can cut carbon emissions without much pain. We talk about global trade - all the US has to do is offer an aid, trade and climate change deal to the rest of the world and a solution is within reach. We talk about US healthcare - within a few years, people will see sense and the uninsured will be covered, he predicts. ...

I wonder aloud whether economics really can solve these big global challenges. In Sachs's world, ... there is always an easy solution. I suggest vested interests, national differences and the fact that reforms tend to [have] winners and losers make issues rather more intractable than he believes. Bringing the subject full circle back to his lectures, he says: "The key word of all of these lectures is 'choice'. A generation has a choice, and we have choices we make collectively... We have some absolutely terrific opportunities... but we miss opportunities all the time. That's why it is really important to understand what these choices are - and that is what I'm trying to explain in these lectures." ...

Comments

[vijay kurhade]

Other than global warming disastrous effects no one challenge of today is some crazy fanatics trying to spread religious thoughts and put world to a boiling point. Mainly christanity vs Islam but this fight has aroused all other religion heads who were asleep for decades.

Also though northen hemispherical countries are getting benifit of longed seasons and more agro products at present, they have to understand it wont last long, so every one needs to come solidly on clearing our own made mess with nature before it messes us all.

Development has to be reached to all those who are in need of it but in name of development and aid conversions should be stopped first, All religious books says same love peace humanity and solidarity is eternal, bloodshed will result in more bloodshed, goodness will result in more goodness.

Same money can be diverted and used for drinking water, food to quality education and life for millions of deprived souls around globe.

As song says 'lets make a better world for u me n entire universe'

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/world/africa/07zambia.html?ex=1333598400&en=952e743158df4499&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

April 7, 2007

Even as Africa Hungers, Policy Slows Delivery of U.S. Food Aid
By CELIA W. DUGGER

MULONDO, Zambia — Traveling to school in wobbly dugout canoes, Munalula Muhau and her three cousins, 7- and 8-year-olds whose parents had died from AIDS, held onto just one possession: battered tin bowls to receive their daily ration of gruel.

Within weeks, those rations, provided by the United Nations World Food Program, are at risk of running out for them and 500,000 other paupers, including thousands of people wasted by AIDS who are being treated with American-financed drugs that make them hungrier as they grow healthy.

"Not to put too fine a point on it," said Jeffrey Stringer, an American doctor who runs a nonprofit group treating more than 50,000 Zambians with AIDS, "but it will result in the death of some patients."

Hoping to forestall such a dire outcome, the World Food Program made an urgent appeal in February for cash donations so it could buy corn from Zambia's own bountiful harvest, piled in towering stacks in the warehouses of the capital, Lusaka.

But the law in the United States requires that virtually all its donated food be grown in America and shipped at great expense across oceans, mostly on vessels that fly American flags and employ American crews — a process that typically takes four to six months.

For a third year, the Bush administration, which has pushed to make foreign aid more efficient, is trying to change the law to allow the United States to use up to a quarter of the budget of its main food aid program to buy food in developing countries during emergencies. The proposal has run into stiff opposition from a potent alliance of agribusiness, shipping and charitable groups with deep financial stakes in the current food aid system.

Oxfam, the international aid group, and other proponents of the Bush proposal say it would enable the United States to feed more people more quickly, while helping to fight poverty by buying the crops of peasants in poor countries.

The United States Agency for International Development estimated that if Congress adopted the Bush proposal, the United States could annually feed at least a million more people for six months and save 50,000 more lives.

But Congress quickly killed the plan in each of the past two years, cautioning that untying food aid from domestic interest groups would weaken the commitment that has made the United States by far the largest food aid donor in a world where 850 million go hungry.

Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, warned last year at a food aid conference in Washington that decoupling food aid from American maritime and agribusiness interests was "beyond insane."

"It is a mistake of gigantic proportions," he said, "because support for such a program will vanish overnight, overnight." ...

[anne]

William Easterly from the sneeringly mean-spirited title of the diatribe against aid on, never considers what might be the burden of any people. Say the burden of people who live in developed countries in temperate climates but have contributed about 60% of greenhouse-warming gases over the decades, against people who have contributed about 3% and live in tropical and drought-threatened and non-developed African countries. Say the burden of the direct human exploitation of Africa through centuries which the British are especially examining at present from London to Liverpool.

[Pat Whalen]

"When I watch all of this now," Sachs says, "it is the ... triumph of politics over economics."

Isn't it always? Its easy to complain about political issues getting in the way of solutions but its the politics that is the issue.

How do you get aid to a country with a massively corrupt government or how do you get a solution implemented when it goes against special interests?

[anne]

There are poor countries with honest governments as there are poor countries with corrupt governments. There are 48 countries in southern Africa, each of which has potentials and problems unique to the individual country. Somaliland has wonderful potential and honesty and peace. What of Somaliland, and why do we so ignore it? There is Rwanda, there is Namibia, there is Malawi, there is Kenya. Each distinct.

[anne]

Why do we, a country that has just allowed North Korea, yes, North Korea, to sell arms to Ethopia to attack and occupy Somalia; why do we not even recognize a country with the promise of Somaliland?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/world/africa/07somaliland.html?ex=1330923600&en=7a295004b000ce13&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

March 7, 2007

The Other Somalia: An Island of Stability in a Sea of Armed Chaos
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

HARGEYSA, Somalia — When the sun rises over the craggy hills of Hargeysa, it sheds light on a different kind of Somalia.

Ice cream trucks selling bona fide soft serve hit the streets. Money changers, unarmed and unguarded, push cash through the market in wheelbarrows. Politicians from three distinct parties get ready for another day of debate, which recently included an animated discussion on registering nomadic voters.

It's all part of a Somali puzzle: how one area of the country, the northwest, also known as Somaliland, can seem so peaceful and functional — so normal, in fact — while the rest continues to be such a violent, chaotic mess.

This tale of two Somalias is especially striking now, as thousands of African Union peacekeepers prepare to rescue Mogadishu, the nation's bloodstained capital, from itself. The internationally backed transitional government that seized Mogadishu in late December with Ethiopia's help says it cannot survive without foreign aid and foreign peacekeepers to quell clan fighting and an escalating insurgency.

Somalilanders, who have wrestled with their own clan conflicts, find this ridiculous.

"You can't be donated power," said Dahir Rayale Kahin, the president of the Republic of Somaliland, which has long declared itself independent from the rest of Somalia. "We built this state because we saw the problems here as our problems. Our brothers in the south are still waiting — till now — for others."

But Somalilanders are waiting, too: waiting to be recognized. In 1991, as Somalia's government disintegrated and clan fighting in the south spun out of control, Somaliland, traditionally one of the poorest parts of Somalia, claimed its independence. But no country acknowledges it as a separate state and very few even contribute aid — which makes Somaliland's success all the more intriguing....

[Asif Dowla]

I like Bill Easterly and use his books in my class. My problem is that he is increasing becoming one idea man. He is right to point out that foreing aid did not lead to economic growth. The question that he failed to ask is whether foreign aid was given to cause growth in the first place. A lot of aid prior to cold war and since is given for geopolitical reasons. Take the case of truck loads of money given to Mobutu. Everyone and their grandmother knew what Mobutu was doing with the aid. He was a bad guy but he was our bad guy. Besides we did not want him to sell uranium to the Ruskies. So it is no wonder that foregin aid to Congo did not cause growth. In his zeal to propound his thesis he completley absolves his former employer. Task managers at the World Bank could only get promoted if they get the money out of the door in bulk. He mentions exampples of aid that worked. Unfortunately, in his public pronouncements he only talks about how foreign aid does not work. I would recommend the readers to watch the video clip of his debate with Bill Gates in Davos. Gates wiped the floor with Easterly. The exchange is mentioned in the latest article on World Bank President in the New Yorker by John Cassidy.

[anne]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/09/070409fa_fact_cassidy?printable=true

April 9, 2007

The Next Crusade: Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank.
By John Cassidy

At a lunch meeting with African leaders, he said, "I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards."

That afternoon, he took part in a panel on foreign aid with Bill Gates, whose philanthropic foundation has an endowment of $30.6 billion; William Easterly, an economist at New York University who is a well-known skeptic of development policy; and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a former bank official who is the President of Liberia. The discussion was held in a large auditorium, and every seat was taken. Gates and Easterly quickly got into an argument about the efficacy of aid programs. Easterly pointed out that research had failed to demonstrate any link between aid and economic growth. In the past forty-two years, he said, Africans have received five hundred and sixty-eight billion dollars in aid, yet there has been no appreciable improvement in their living standards.

Gates, whose foundation has invested billions of dollars in programs and initiatives in Africa, many of which relate to public health, reacted angrily. He disputed Easterly's statistics and declared, "When we put people on AIDS drugs, we don't say to them, 'Hey, unless you raise the G.D.P.' "—gross domestic product—" 'we have wasted our money.' . . . I think life has value. . . . What happened with smallpox—that was aid work."

Many conservative Republicans agree with Easterly that aid has done little good, an argument that Wolfowitz has resisted. After listening to the sharp exchange between Gates and Easterly, Wolfowitz conceded that much aid money has been misused—he cited Mobutu Sese Seko, the former ruler of Zaire, who reportedly pocketed five billion dollars from aid agencies, including the World Bank. But Wolfowitz also defended the idea of giving more cash to well-run countries. "Good policies, good governance is essential," he said. "But when you have those, resources are essential. You can't do it without investment. And I think that's where development assistance really plays its role." ...

[anne]

Pointing out the use aid, that was nothing of aid, to support supposed cold war allies in Africa and the havoc wrought in the wake of cold war arming, where arming was never necessary, is essential to remember.

Notice though we are willing even now to allow the Ethopians to buy North Korean arms, almost certainly with American direct or indirect assistance, to attack and occupy Somalia. But, I find this shocking enough to wonder if I can possibly understand. Aid though through the cold war so often had such a lunatic quality.

[anne]

"When we put people on AIDS drugs, we don't say to them, 'Hey, unless you raise the G.D.P.' "—gross domestic product—" 'we have wasted our money.' . . . I think life has value. . . . What happened with smallpox—that was aid work."

Precisely so.

[Henk J.Th. van Stokkom]

Although I agree with Jeffrey Sachs his view I am not convinced that the Millennium Villages Project will be enough proof of concept. It has been tried and failed before. And because of the enormous impact of all international attention, like the Angelina Jolie's of this world, visiting the millennium villages it is becoming a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. At least that is my view after my visit to Sauri last november (Sauri is the first MVP village in Kenya, west of Kisumu). But yes, as said, I agree on; "...more direct aid can dramatically reduce poverty in just a few years."

http://vanstokkom.blogspot.com/2007/03/rapid-victories-against-extreme-poverty.html

[robertdfeinman]

Gates is an example of what I call the Mother Teresa approach to charity. He gives money to the poor, but doesn't do anything to fight poverty. One could even argue that, ultimately, he will make things worse since, by improving the life expectancy in those regions, the population will increase even more.

Gates is also giving money based upon his own objectives, he answers to no one. He is spending money extracted from the public (in the form of monopoly earnings) and spending it without any input from the people. This is the height of an anti-democratic approach. If his earnings had been properly taxed the money could have gone to the treasury where it could have been allocated using democratic means.

Just to put things into perspective. If the entire AIDs infected population of the world (40 million) were to die tomorrow their numbers would be replaced in six months. Not understanding the issue of overpopulation is the main reason that real solutions to resource depletion and climate change are not forthcoming.

[realpc]

I think Sachs genuinely wants to help and his motives are saintly. On the other hand, I think he has a glorious image of himself as a world savior. This interferes with his perception of reality.

The problems are complex yet appear simple to Sachs. I'm not saying I don't want Africa to get help, but it's also somewhat condescending to assume they can't do anything without help from the "superior" Americans and Europeans.

As I have said here before, if Africa develops a prosperous middle class they will all be driving and what will happen to global warming then? I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to become prosperous. Just that people like Sachs aren't necessarily always thinking straight.

And yes, population control is more important than getting food and drugs to everyone. No, I don't want anyone to starve to death, anymore than I want myself to starve to death. But I don't think handing out food solves anything in the long run. And I don't believe in AIDS drugs at all. They might prolong life, but they do not restore health, and they increase the chance of infecting others.

So I think the current saints are going to be disappointed, although they probably will do some good. But they are so emotionally involved in the idea of helping the poor clueless Africans, and becoming great famous saviors, that I don't think they always see clearly.

[Emmanuel]

I have a clip of the Easterly/Gates/Wolfowitz/Sirleaf panel at Davos 2007 on my site as I do follow development issues. It's probably no surprise to anyone that I thought Easterly came out well ahead.

Anne: Easterly doesn't say that all aid is useless. What he says is that virtually no country has successfully developed as the result of an aid project. How far along has progress been on the Millennium Development Goals? Even Sachs would be forced to admit, "not far at all."
I rest my case (for now).

[john c. halasz]

"good economic solutions will work, if only politics doesn't get in the way..."

Well, that just shows the fallaciousness of his thinking, as if there were a nice, clean line of demarcation between economics and politics in any real world. At least, Sachs now openly admits that Cold War motivations to weaken Russia were behind the disasterous imposition of "shock therapy", in which he was fully complicit. And citing his old involvement in Bolivia, as if that were responsible for events in Latin America nowadays is, er, a bit rich. Does anyone remember what happened to "Goni"? And Poland got half its accumulated foreign debt absolved, some $24 billion as I recall, whereas Hungary, which had initiated market reforms long before any other Comecon country, received no relief, which may not entirely be behind its current fiscal problems, but still, can you say "politics", eh? And does anyone remember the first Eastern European country to have IMF sponsored "shock therapy" imposed on it? Oh, yeah, that would be the former federal Yugoslavia in 1989. Neo-liberals full of humanitarian concern who want to redeem themselves by attending to the salvation of the world would be best advised to more closely examine themselves. And perhaps they should look up Hyman Minsky's contemporaneous criticisms of the attempted imposition of "reforms" on Russia to see what a real and realistic economist looks like.

[anne]

Emmanuel, I do understand and even sympathize with your argument but aid is too little and has been too often too hypocritical to worry about from a restrictive stance. When we support Ethiopia in buying weapons from North Korea, then complaints about aid from Jeffrey Sachs perspective are only foolish and uncharitable.

[Peter H]

Donor countries spend less than 0.5% of their income on foreign aid. The amount of debate regarding foriegn aid is disproportionate to its actual importance.

[reason]

realpc...
Credit where credit is due, that was an excellent comment.

But perhaps some hard-nosed non-saints are needed as well, because the problems of Africa could easily the problems of the rest of the world as any Southern Spaniard could tell you. As Sachs says about Easterly, just what exactly IS Easterly doing about the problem. Criticism is easy.

[Ramin Assemi]

I'd just like to post a link here to the video that has been mentioned here, the discussion at Davos (Bill Gates, Bill Easterly, Wolfowitz, and others).
The "Gates vs. Easterly" part starts around 15 minutes 30 seconds, but if you can spare a full hour it's worth watching the whole clip.

Video-Clip: Gates, Easterly, Wolfowitz and others
This is a recording of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2007 - Scaling Innovation in Foreign Aid

[anne]

Thank you, I will surely watch the video, Ramin. Also, below will be a follow-up of this article, excerpted above, on how food aid can be destructive though surely should not be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/world/africa/07zambia.html?ex=1333598400&en=952e743158df4499&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

April 7, 2007

Even as Africa Hungers, Policy Slows Delivery of U.S. Food Aid
By CELIA W. DUGGER

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/world/14food.html?hp

April 14, 2007

Oversight Report Says U.S. Food Aid Practices Are Wasteful
By CELIA W. DUGGER

The United States government's food aid programs are riddled with wasteful practices and hit by rising logistical costs that have halved the amount of food delivered to the hungry in Africa, Asia and Latin America over the past five years, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office released yesterday.

The G.A.O., which briefed Congress last month on the preliminary findings of its yearlong investigation of food aid, yesterday laid out for the first time what it described as the "inherently inefficient" sale of American-grown food in poor countries to finance antipoverty programs run by aid groups.

Under this practice, known as monetization, food is shipped at great expense across oceans to the world's poorest countries. There, managers at nonprofit groups double as grain traders, selling the food on local markets to generate cash for development programs.

Thomas Melito, the G.A.O.'s director of international affairs and trade, said this practice was a highly inefficient way to raise money for development, given that over a third of food aid spending has been consumed by the rapidly rising costs of ocean shipping.

Under American law, virtually all food given as aid must be grown in the United States, which means it has to be shipped out.

Federal agencies were unable to provide comprehensive estimates of how much money such sales had generated compared with the costs of buying, shipping and selling the food abroad, Mr. Melito said.

Over the past three years, more than $500 million in food aid has been sold in developing countries to raise cash for programs to combat poverty, federal statistics showed.

"The sales are likely to generate less than 50 cents on the dollar, and it may be much less," he said....

[anne]

Aid is necessary morally and physically, aid can be remarkably efficacious morally and physically, that aid may not be helpful as possible, as the articles on food aid clearly show is the not fault of our being caring and generous but the fault of program construction that defeats our caring. We are tragically spending $14 billion a month directly on a destructive occupation of Iraq; we have not even begun to do what we should and can to assist southern Africans.

[anne]

There are treasures and treasures, and we have an inescapable obligation in helping to preserve:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/science/06wild.html?ex=1330837200&en=49e502f00987f383&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

March 6, 2007

A Biological Hot Spot in Africa, With New Species Still to Discover
By CARL ZIMMER

The Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania may not be terribly tall — only half the height of their famous neighbor, Mount Kilimanjaro. But to scientists who tally the planet's biodiversity, they tower over the rest of the world. The forests that cover their flanks contain the highest density of endangered animals anywhere on earth.

"This is a really important place," said Neil Burgess, an expert on the Eastern Arc Mountains at the University of Cambridge and the World Wildlife Fund. "Biologists who go there just keep finding more and more species."

In January, an international network of scientists presented the latest findings on diversity in the Eastern Arc in the journal Biological Conservation.

Many species that live on the mountains live nowhere else in the world. (Scientists call them endemic.) So far, researchers have identified 96 endemic species of vertebrates in the Eastern Arc Mountains, including sunbirds, chameleons and the wide-eyed primates called bushbabies.

Many insects are also endemic to the Eastern Arc, including 43 species of butterflies. Some of the most popular houseplants in the world come from its forests, including African violets, and the mountains are home to at least 800 other endemic species of plants.

All of these species are crammed into 13 patches of forest that, put together, would be barely bigger than Rhode Island. Only a few places on earth, including New Zealand and Madagascar, have comparable densities of endangered endemic species. Scientists call them biodiversity hot spots.

Geography plays a big role in the making of a hot spot. The Eastern Arc has been around for some 30 million years. "They've probably had forests on them for all of that time," said Dr. Burgess, the lead author of the new reports. "Even during very dry periods, the forests have survived."

Lineages that became extinct elsewhere in East Africa have been able to survive in the Eastern Arc....

[anne]

There is a concerted attack on international aid even as international aid is becoming more of a physical and moral necessity. Brad DeLong and Joseph Stiglitz have long pointed us to understanding how optimistic an event the development of China and India is. After all, we can watch the lives of 2.4 billion people strikingly bettered. But, that allows for a sharper focus than before on assistance through areas such as southern Africa. We have barely touched on the potentials of southern Africa with 48 countries and myriad cultures and 800 million, but the obligation and opportunity are there as never before.

DeLong and Stiglitz are optimistic on India and China, I am optimistic about what aid can mean in southern Africa now that we can appropriately focus resources if we can indeed choose to properly protectively generously extend aid and not denigrate.