An end to extreme poverty by 2025
Bhutan chances to achieve this goal are good, says Jeffrey David Sachs
By Phuntsho Wangdi
Kuensel Online
31 July, 2010
Bhutan’s prospects for ending extreme poverty by 2025 are quite good, according to well known American economist, Jeffrey David Sachs, who is in the country to meet government officials and get to know the country better.
“First the social peace and determination of the country is very strong,” said Mr Sachs, who is also the director of the Earth institute at Columbia university. “Second, GNH is a powerful concept that can serve the country well if it moves beyond a slogan. Third, there will be a lot of revenue from hydropower. That provides quite a good platform to address issues of health, education, infrastructure needed to address poverty.”
Jeffrey David Sachs
Mr Sachs, who offers a blueprint of ending extreme poverty by 2025 in one of his books, “The End of Poverty” said that ending extreme poverty was not a single or simple step. “For Bhutan how the government uses the revenue that will come from hydropower will be critical, so one major challenge would be developing the resource and investing it properly,’” said Mr Sachs, who is known for implementing economic shock therapy throughout the developing world; and for his work on the challenges of economic development, environmental sustainability and poverty alleviation.
In a press conference with the Bhutanese media yesterday in Thimphu, Mr Sachs said that, as an economic strategy to address poverty, he always thought of five sectors – agriculture, education, health, infrastructure and business development.
For Bhutan, agriculture was important, because a large section of the population is still farmers. Education was the single most important way in the long term, both to end poverty and to reduce inequality. More needed to be done in the area of health from safe childhood, to nutrition, to a healthy childhood and adult life. Infrastructure was also a huge challenge, given the country’s unique topography and geography; and developing small and medium business was part of the future.
But he said that Bhutan has challenges that are unique and only Bhutan will be able to figure them out.
On opening up to FDI, the professor said that, if handled properly, it is a channel for economic well being; but it can also be a threat, if handled badly. It can be a threat, socially, ecologically and politically. It was a similar issue of whether Bhutan should become or shy away from WTO. The benefits could be modest and the risks could be real. Bhutan would have to weigh whether it was worth it.
Mr Sachs said that GNH, which was what brought him to Bhutan, if taken seriously can be a guide to a lot of these questions being raised in Bhutan today.
“It’s a concept; in the process of being developed, a work in progress. It isn’t that there is a formula no one has it, including Bhutan, but what it does is provoke a set of questions. How do we create a society that is balanced, fair, compassionate, sustainable?”
Those questions each society needs to answer in its specific historical context and level of development and geography, but, if we can keep those questions in front of society, that will be a huge benefit.
Mr Sachs said that the world can certainly get rid of extreme poverty by 2025, but the frustration was what can be done won’t necessarily be done. Instead of investing in poverty reduction, the US, for example, was investing in the military, USD 750B this year. “The scientific based analysis says yes it can be done; the tools have gotten better, but we are running out of time and have not found the political wisdom to do it,” he said.
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