Bentley Leadership Forum Part I: Keynote by Jeff Sachs
by Catherine LaineApril 26th, 2007
The Bentley Leadership Forum happened today and it was phenomenal. Short (8am - 2pm) and packed with some superstars Jeff Sachs, Vikram Akula (SKS Microfinance), Dean Kammen (Mr. Segway, Deka Research), Nicholas Negroponte (OLPC; nice new logo. I wonder how much the laptop.org domain cost), and Jeff Schwartz (CEO of Timberland, who gave on of the best public speeches I’ve heard in a long time). This year’s topic was “The Business of Healing Our World: Science, Technology and Commerce Unite To Tackle Global Challenges”.
Edward J. McCarrick, worldwide president and publisher of TIME, introduced Sachs, speaking of his work in Bolivia, Russia, India and China earlier in his career (See his book End of Poverty for more on that score). He describes Jeff as moving from a classically trained economist, who believed that change would come through World Bank and the IMF, to a holistic economist, who saw they need to focus on health, education, and other human development indicators to achieve economic development. McCarrick called Sachs the best advocate for enlightened globalization.
Sachs starts off with a funny story, an ice-breaker. He and Bono had an audience with Pope John Paul II, who at the time was a leader of the campaign to cancel debt to poor countries in 1999. When they were leaving the premises after their meeting, the gates opened up, and a mass of screaming fans rushed the car. “You know Bono” he says, “They always do that for macro-economists”.
I was typing while I was listening so what follows is a decent paraphrase.
Sachs feels that there is a new glimmer of hope in the air; something seems to be changing. The frustrating campaign for moral responsibility and a realistic appraisal of the world by our government may be coming to an end. We are moving from what has been a time of great fear to a time of hope. And also a time of action.
The last few years have been dominated by an “Us vs Them” approach to the world, (“If you are not with us, you are against us” as Bush said in 2001). Now there seems to be an understanding that this type of thinking is not delivering security, allowing us to fulfill our basic hopes as human beings, nor drawing on America’s ability to do good in the world.
What hopes? Sachs lists three.
- To build a world without poverty, hungry, and disease. The paradox of our time is the sheer wealth we have in the face millions who must fight every day for their survival. “This is something that we can change and change now”, he says.
- Safe and sustainable environment. We are pressing on the world’s ecosystem in so many destructive ways: deforestation, pollution, overfishing of just about every major fishery of the world’s ocean, excessive water extraction depleting aquifers, etc. etc. etc. He also mentions how climate change will complicate access to clean water for agricultural, household, and industrial use.
- Peace and security. Sachs reiterates his doubt that the road to peace will be through military conquest and occupation. “We are 100 years past the age of empire”, he says. This nostalgia “should be locked in a drawer, kept under seal, in a Bio 3 lab”. [Personally, I’d up that to Cat IV]
The World has demonstrated the universality of these three hopes by the treaties and millennium promises made in the 1990’s. He lists six. Here is a little lesson in international law far ya.
- Our (the global “we” rather than the U.S. “we”) desires to address health, hunger and poverty are embodied in the Millennium Development Goals.
- The 1992 Rio Earth Summit Agreement (Agenda 21), signed by George Bush pere, focused on combating global warming and environmental degradation.
[Folks don’t realize that Dubya’s dad had great respect for the UN, international law and human rights treaties. He pushed the ratification of several HR treaties by Congress during his tenure in office.
For those not familiar with how a treaty becomes a law in the US, the signing of an international treaty by the head of state is just the first part of the process. After signing, it has to be ratified by Congress. There are multiple treaties that have been signed by the U.S., but not ratified. The Kyoto Protocol is one of them. Unfortunately with many of the ratified treaties, especially the human rights ones, enforcement of U.S. commitments is very difficult in situations where we do not wish to comply. A big issue for human rights law, for example, is that the U.S. will not deign to submit itself to international oversight by the International Criminal Court. Things are different with international trade treaties and the U.S. has had to defend itself in front of the WTO. We often still do what we want, but it is a bit harder. I could go on about American exceptionalism but I’ll leave it at that. Grrrrr arrrggh.
Back to Agenda 21. It is a tome, a 900-page behemoth for environmental improvement in the 21st century. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change also came out of this conference. ]
- Bush refused to sign the Convention on Biological Diversity which also came out of the Rio Summit.
- Also at this Conference (man, they were busy!) was the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Sachs views the issue of desertification at the heart of the Darfuri and the Somali disasters. These two examples of states in unbelievable crisis are occasioned by environmental phenomena. Resource scarcity brought on by lack of water and food bred conflict, war and untold human suffering.
- Our yearning for peace and security is evidenced by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (Signed: September 24, 1996; not ratified.) …
- … and the Extension of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NPT calls on signatories to take serious action for disarmament and on non-signatories to restrain themselves from becoming nuclear powers. Nations that did not sign are behaving very badly these days.
If you are wondering who has nukes:
and this is an equally informative and hilarious video, unfortunately has a Tarantino amount of swearing. You’ve been warned. NSFW.
Favorite parts of his talk:
Malaria is hitting 3 major cultural icons: Time mag, the President’s Rose Garden (Bushes launches Malaria Awareness Day today), and American Idol. That’s right. You heard me, American Idol has joined the fight against malaria.
[BTW the man behind Comic Relief and Red Nose Day is the one who approached Idol producer and creator Simon Fuller with the idea.
“Richard Curtis is a remarkable man and the Red Nose Day charity on BBC TV is an amazing humanitarian effort. Richard approached me a couple of years ago and asked how we could work together to launch a major new televised charity initiative in the U.S. following on from the $820 million that he has raised in the UK with Red Nose Day,” stated Simon Fuller, creator and executive producer of AMERICAN IDOL. “After lengthy discussions it occurred to me that we should use AMERICAN IDOL as an existing platform to premiere this idea. [ref]
]
The amount of money that it would cost to buy bednets for 300 million people/sleeping sites in Africa is $1.5 billion dollars. They’re 5 bucks a pop. This is equivalent to ONE DAY of Pentagon spending. Sachs urges the folks at the Pentagon to “take next Thursday off. Go home. Relax.”
How to get politicians to act on these issues? Show up to all the rallies, ask them tough questions that they are not being asked and not just about what you are going to do about me, me, me. Give them hell, make them sharpen up and get off the slogans and talk about the real deal. Only make sure the ones who are speaking of war as solutions don’t get a chance.
(Aaaaiiiieee. My computer blue screened.)
Related info:
AIDG Book Club: End of Poverty (Part 1)
AIDG Book Club: End of Poverty (Part 2)
End of Poverty (Part 3): Did you know?
End of Poverty (Part 4): A few for the highlight reel
End of Poverty (Part 5): The breakdown
Sachs Delivers one of the prestigious Reith Lecture on BBC Radio 4.
If you haven’t had enough by then, there is also a great Q & A with Sachs on the Managing Globlization blog.
Semi non-sequitur to end this post:
Let’s play “That makes me think of”. The Rio Earth Summit makes me think of Boutros Boutros Ghali who was Secretary General of the United Nations. That makes me think of his hilarious interview with Ali G. Innit.
