Jeffrey Sachs is widely known to the development community as a luminary and a lightning rod. Since helping to turn around struggling economies in Bolivia and Poland in the 1980s, the famed economist (a tenured Harvard professor by the age of 28) has become among the world’s most prominent advocates for development aid. His tireless advocacy and firm views have gathered both powerful allies — among them the U.N. secretary-general and Bono — and persistent critics.
He is among a small group of development leaders who have broken through to mainstream attention: Just two years ago he nominated himself — only partly to make a point — as World Bank president.
From his perch as the director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, Sachs continues to serve as the spiritual guide of the Millennium Villages Project, which he founded in 2002 to prove that rural poverty can be eradicated through a targeted combination of international expertise and subsidized seed, fertilizer, medicine, bednets and the like.