Oversimplification in the Global Poverty Debate

By Bill Shore | April 19, 2007

Every year since 1948, BBC has organized a series of lectures in which a leading public figure addresses a worldwide radio audience about important contemporary issues. This year the Reith lectures, named in honor of the BBC's first director general will be delivered by Jeffrey Sachs.

The first was delivered last Wednesday at the Royal Society in London and will be followed by four more in succession in Beijing, New York, London, and Edinburgh. The link to the lectures is http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/

Sachs defines the challenge of our generation as learning to live harmoniously on a crowded planet.

In an example of the choices before us, Sachs used a formulation that has become his signature style: "There are three hundred million sleeping sites in Africa that need protection from malaria. Anti-malaria bed nets last five years, and cost a mere five dollars - one dollar per year. Often more than one child sleeps under a net...so for three hundred million sleeping sites at five dollars per net, I calculate $1.5 billion...$620 billion of military budget, divided by 365 days, tells me that we are now spending $1.7 billion per day on the Pentagon...my little calculation has shown you that one day's Pentagon spending could cover every sleeping site in Africa for five years with anti-malaria bed nets."

I've always deeply admired how Jeff Sachs tirelessly works to bring attention to global poverty. But when I read such statements I face this dilemma: I'm impressed at first with how provocatively he has framed the choices, but then wonder if the oversimplification advances his cause.

While you can't argue with his math, his political equations are not as convincing. Sadly, the distribution of political power in America puts Pentagon spending ahead of malaria eradication. It always has. Wishing it were otherwise, no matter how eloquently, is not a sufficient strategy.

Another favorite Sachs equation, from a piece he wrote for Scientific American, goes like this: "Comprehensive, Africa-wide control of malaria and NTDs together would probably cost no more than $3 billion a year, or just two days of Pentagon spending. If each of the billion people in the rich world devoted the equivalent of one $3 coffee a year to the cause, several million children every year would be spared death and debility, and the world would be spared the grave risks when disease and despair run unchecked."

This is probably not too far from what panhandlers at the subway must fantasize: "If everyone that passed by just gave one dime..." But of course that's not what everyone passing by does. And each of the billion people in the rich world isn't going to send the equivalent of a $3 dollar coffee.

Albert Einstein once said that everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Effectively addressing global poverty is mind-bogglingly complex. And expensive. Failing to assert that could undermine the long-term efforts that such poverty and disease eradication will require.

I'll be following Sachs additional four lectures to see if his prescriptions for change are as powerful and persuasive as his passion for economic justice. You should too. Tune in to the Reith Lectures and hear or read Jeffrey Sachs arguments so you can make up your own mind.