Jeffrey Sachs Government Quotations

Senior development specialists in the Treasury can be counted on one hand. America's government is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to meet the commitments.

we took on as a project helping a village in western Kenya. It was 5,000 hungry people beset with malaria and AIDS. And we said, 'let's apply the recommendations of the Millennium Project in this village with the support of a private donor, because government donors don't seem to do such practical things.' And we helped them get improved seeds and some fertilizer for the planting season. That's all. Very low cost. They produced four times more food this year than last year.

The Russian government not only acted corruptly, not only built up a new oligarchy of billionaires out of nothing, basically, but also gave away its most valuable financial assets-its ownership of the huge natural resource sector in Russia.

A lot of the old apparatchiks came back in, and corruption really dramatically increased in '94/'95, particularly around Yeltsin's re-election in 1996, when the government used corrupt practices to give money to business, part of which was returned to the campaign coffers, and helped pay for Yeltsin's re-election.

America's government is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to meet the commitments.