At the United Nations yes­ter­day, Jef­frey Sachs said that the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity can meet the Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals if they spend the money nec­es­sary. Sachs says more donors are needed to improve infra­struc­ture and fight dis­eases in the poor coun­tries of the world.

From the Busi­ness Mir­ror, Imelda V. Abaño recorded Sachs’ comments.

“We are not run­ning out of time to achieve our devel­op­ment goals,” said Sachs, who is also the direc­tor of the Earth Insti­tute and pro­fes­sor of Health Pol­icy and Man­age­ment at Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity. “There is not a goal that can’t be achieved and we need to look at the finan­cial gaps. Instead of com­mis­sion­ing more stud­ies and mak­ing more promises, gov­ern­ments should finance, imple­ment and scale up what they had already promised to do.”

In 2006, a sug­gested fig­ure for achiev­ing the UN plan was $135 bil­lion, ris­ing to $195 bil­lion in 2015.

The MDGs were agreed upon by world lead­ers at the UN’s Mil­len­nium Sum­mit in 2000. They cover erad­i­cat­ing extreme poverty and hunger; achiev­ing uni­ver­sal pri­mary edu­ca­tion; pro­mot­ing gen­der equal­ity; reduc­ing child mor­tal­ity; improv­ing mater­nal health; com­bat­ing HIV/AIDS; malaria and other dis­eases; ensur­ing envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­ity; and fos­ter­ing a global part­ner­ship for development.

With less than a year to go before the Sum­mit, this moment rep­re­sents the last chance for the world to get it right by hon­or­ing fis­cal com­mit­ments and stand­ing by their pledges to fund imple­men­ta­tion of the tar­gets, Sachs added.

Sachs regards the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malaria and the Mil­len­nium Vil­lages as suc­cess­ful exam­ples of financ­ing devel­op­ment. The lat­ter refers to a project of Sachs’ Earth Insti­tute, where experts have been work­ing with the res­i­dents of vil­lages in Tan­za­nia and Kenya to address their devel­op­men­tal chal­lenges in a sys­tem­atic and prac­ti­cal way. Some 200 mil­lion peo­ple in devel­op­ing coun­tries have received free insecticide-treated bed nets since the Global Fund’s incep­tion in 2002.  Sachs also pre­dicted that a sim­i­lar fund set up at the World Bank for agri­cul­ture with ready access for African agri­cul­ture min­is­ters would enable them to dou­ble agri­cul­ture pro­duc­tion in five years.

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