Review: The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs

By: Kwabena Brako-Powers

Introduction:

Africa is the world's second largest continent after Asia with a total surface area of 30.3 million km2, including several islands, and an estimated total population of 888 million (2005, UN). Several literature have been published on the developmental challenges of Africa. And while some laid the blame on the door steps of Africans, others did not hesitate to point the West were they got it wrong. The chapter five (5) of Jeffrey D. Sachs book The End of Poverty titled The Voiceless Dying: Africa and Diseases – is the closest a non-native of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has ever come to objectively diagnosing the development drawbacks and poverty situations in Africa.

Jeffrey Sachs’ Core Arguments:

According to Sachs, Africa’s development crisis reflected the interactions of history, geography, domestic policies, and geopolitics. And that “these interactions had left Africa stuck in a poverty trap.” In what appeared an overblown reasons for the underdevelopment of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Sachs refuted the argument of colonialization, Western violence and meddling that Africans have long held unto as reasons for the poor development of the continent and the West’s argument of African governance and corruption issues as responsible for the poor situations of the continent. To him, ‘Both the critics of African governance and the critics of Western violence and meddling have it wrong. Politics, at the end of the day, simply cannot explain Africa’s prolonged economic crisis.” He saw disease, drought, and distance from world markets as some of the unique challenges for modern economic development. He cited Adam Smith who noted in the third of his trilogy in The Wealth of Nations that the continent of Africa had been poor from beginning because the continent lacked navigable rivers and natural inlets that affected the benefits of low-cost, sea-based trade.

“I came to appreciate that isolation and lack of basic infrastructure are the prevailing conditions of most of rural Africa, and that rural Africa is where most Africans live”, he wrote. Sachs reveals that disease and death had a deeper role to play in Africa’s prolonged inability to develop economically centuries over. He noted that ‘Even before the Industrial Revolution, Africa had the lowest urbanization rate of any part of the world, and apparently the world’s lowest living standards on the eve of the era of modern economic growth.” To him, unraveling the interconnectedness between extreme poverty, rampant disease, unstable and harsh climate conditions, high transport costs, chronic hunger, and inadequate food production would lead to a clear understanding and solutions for Africa’s economic ailment. Just when he proffered some answers to Africa’s developmental issues such as; governance choices made by African regimes and the implementation of traditional market reforms, he crumbled the argument when he said that “…the more I realized that although predatory governance can soundly trounce economic development, good governance and market reforms are not sufficient to guarantee growth if the country is in a poverty trap.” He later laid the blame on malaria and HIV/AIDS prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa. His solution was to bring global players together culminating in the birth of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

What Sachs Failed to See?

In so far as I do agree with Sachs in his line of arguments for the underdevelopment of sub-Saharan Africa, I feel his ideals are Western biased. It is true both arguments peddled by Africans blaming the West for the sins committed on the soil of the continent are over-stretched, however, they are responsible for some of the poverty situations in the continent. Walter Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa 1973 said, “The question as to who and what is responsible for African underdevelopment can be answered at two levels. Firstly, the answer is that the operation of the imperialist system bears major responsibility for African economic retardation by draining African wealth and by making it impossible to develop more rapidly the resources of the continent.”

Also, that malaria and AIDS prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) could not so much be blamed for the economic situation in Africa since the presence of the latter has been part and parcel of the continent. What has escalated the situation in the continent is the problem of poor healthcare systems—which has persisted for ages. Health care infrastructures in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have proven inadequate to solve the spate of disease prevalence that envelope the region. Of more recent is the Ebola pandemic that unrolled the economic gains of West Africa. The poor handling of the disease is a testament of the broken healthcare infrastructure in the region. Therefore, to have the issue of malaria and HIV/AIDS controlled demand more than just the birth and launch of a Global Fund which funds the fight against malaria, AIDS and TB. The efforts required are more; technical support, building of healthcare infrastructure, and education.

Again, Sachs failed to point the role Western Donor Aids have done to the continent. In their supposed ‘magnanimity’ they provide funds to Africa for development which end up under-developing the continent. In the 1960s the rate of repayment (amortization) on official loans in underdeveloped countries rose from $400 million per year to about $700 million per year, and it is constantly on the increase (Rodney, 1973). And these loans have to be paid with interest paid on these loans as well and profits which are taken from the direct investment in the economy. Statistics have it that these two sources accounted for over $500 million flowing out of underdeveloped countries in the year 1965. This alone explains how much Africa and Ghana are being drained off by those who claim to invest in the continent. These Western individuals and institutions end up owning large part of the means of production and wealth of the continent.

The Way Forward:

Clearly, the solutions for solving the underdevelopment of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) especially Ghana lie not in protectionist economy, but in developing the country through the eye of domestic policies aimed at bringing all facets of the traditional setup into play in the mainframe planning. Government needs to invest in the human resources of the country. Education system must be strengthened with focus on science and technology development instead of the current emphasis on fields of humanities. Higher education is fundamental in bringing Africa and Ghana back into the world system. Ghana needs consistent education in ICTs with infrastructures as fiber optic cables, antennas, reliable electricity grids so that people can benefit from an advanced use of ICTs and harness their economic potential. Again, policy makers need to work in hand with farmers to mechanize the agriculture sector to ensure that fewer hands are brought on board to achieve more unlike the current status quo. Also, there is the need to upgrade and step up the infrastructure development such as roads networks in the country.