Sachs: Poverty Alleviation Route to Security

Jan 19, 2007 | Wilson Center
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Urging a better understanding of the roots of instability, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs on Wednesday said that fighting poverty will provide security benefits to the developing and the developed worlds:  “Instability will grow where poverty festers in an extreme form, that’s what we’re seeing in the Horn of Africa. This isn’t a crisis about Islam, this isn’t a crisis about geopolitics, this is essentially a crisis of extreme poverty.” He cited mosquito nets, medicine, and fertilizer as three means to improve health and livelihoods among the world’s poor.