>> things begin to get tough. tell us the bit about what that was about and mutual accountability bargain, what kind of frustration you did experience after a while within these projects were continuing. >> i think jeffrey sachs is a character who, to many of us, is

recognizable. these a model, maniacal, very brilliant man who set up to try to accomplish something enormous and really stake his career on the claim that he could into poverty, and that he could do it in our lifetime. and very graciously, i think, allowed me to shadow him in a way that was terribly intrusive. if any of you have ever had a journalist like me cover you will know, it is interested. it's not fun. i ask a lot of questions. i stick my nose and everywhere. i demande demand to see every d. when things were going well, that was marvelous all around. i think for jeffrey sachs he was hopeful, and, frankly, i was hopeful when i began that the outcome would be a positive one. who doesn't want poverty to be ended? and yet as the time went by and as it became clear from the work that i was doing in the villages from the ground level, that the

hurdles were ever greater. i compared it to some people have asked me to that gain, you know, you keep trying to knock down little things that pop up and -- whack-a-mole, thank you. that's exactly what it is. this is very much sachs and his team, they would make improvements and it would be improvements, that as soon as they thought they'd solve one problem it would be a host of unintended consequences that would pop up and then they wind up having to whack all of these problems down. it was heartbreaking to see what was happening. but from a journalistic standpoint and from the perspective of someone who cares about, about the visibility and about transparency i suppose you could say, as a journalist, what was equally heartbreaking was that jeffrey sachs and his team became ever more entrenched, and the data that was coming out of the organization was

increasingly problematic. the numbers no longer matched up with what i was saying, and and reports and these figures and the studies that were coming out were clearly misrepresented. there was a growing amount of obfuscation, and so many ways it really mirrored what i think happens, unfortunately, in a large number of ngos of nonprofit generally, which is that people are under tremendous pressure to raise money from their donors and to satisfy their donors and to make sure their donors don't feel that the money is being wasted. none of us wants to think when we give $100 to an organization that it's all gone missing or is being stolen or wasted. it was very disheartening for me to see what actually happened, the disconnect between the reality on the ground and what was being told in the official

publications and press releases of the organization. >> i'm also now again going to quote from william easterly -- this is not working, sorry. easterly was not interviewed for the book by nina munk, but he is quoted briefly, and he mentions in his review the following. i am quoted at one point as remarking that sachs is essentially trying to great an island of success in to see if failure, and maybe he's done that, but it doesn't address the see of failure. actually, i got that wrong. easterly writes. munk even raises doubts about the island of success. i want to also quote from nina's book in this way. i think a key point, this comes up several times in her book, is

the following on page 217. >> in other words, aren't we creating an internal dependency? aren't we doing these people a disservice by not providing both a means for sustainability? >> you know, i said this in a radio interview the other day. it does not give me any pleasure to have to report in my book that jeffrey sachs' experiment is by any standard a disappointment certainly, and arguably even a failure. i don't take any pleasure in that. and i have said many times and i will continue to say that when i began this project, i truly was

hopeful. on the great skeptic, both by nature and by profession. that's what journalists do. but i was really hopeful that this project would turn out well. and i think bill easterly, who of course we do have do take his review with the grain of salt because he's very well known as a great jeff sax nemesis, and he also is a brilliant man. when he mentions what i did mention easterly for the book, i did that on purpose. i didn't want anyone to be able to say, our jeff sax in particular, to be able to say you were swept off your feet by my critics. and i wanted to be clear that it was i personally really as an outsider, neither a development expert. i'm not an economist. i am quoted simply a journalist. i went in there. i watched what happened. i followed the story as it unfolded on the ground.

and, frankly, i spent a lot more time in these villages than any other outsider has spent. certainly much more time than jeffrey sachs. and it is, it's my great happiness to report that none of these experiments worked as intended. >> i want to quote one part of the book that william easterly actually criticizes. he said, there should be no attacks against jeffrey sachs. if you interpret this to be -- nina writes, columbia university paid 8 million for sachs' townhouse in 2002. part of a package of benefits designed to lure him from harvard. apart from six bedrooms and fireplaces, what is particularly appealing is the south facing garden. >> it is a lovely house. [laughter] i will say that, you know,

william ehrman is an academic. i'm a journalist. i think about the kinds of people -- the kind of homes people live in a fast and. i also, to my defense, i think it's important, and i know that all of us industry were guilty where you live in an $8 million townhouse or you read a thousand dollar a month studio, we have no idea, we can't even begin to understand the gulf between the ways we live, between the extraordinary lives that we lead, just by having run thing -- running water alone a garden with tulips. and to me part of the reason why it was important to point out that jeffrey sachs lives in an exquisitely beautiful townhouse on the upper west side is to demonstrate, again, how difficult it is are some of my

jeffrey sachs to even begin to understand what it means to live the way the people in the villages that he's trying to help lift. and i can tell you from firsthand, again, that even in my case, and i spent a great deal of time in these villages, i slept in these huts with people. i did to the best of my abilities, i attempted to empathize, to really understand how they lived. i don't even begin to scratch the surface. to be in a place where there is nothing, as a reporter, as an outsider, always knowing that it anymore you can turn around and get the hell out and get on an airplane and go home, by definition means you don't understand it. and i can assure you as much as i don't ever really understand it, jeffrey sachs really, really, really doesn't understand it. [laughter] >> another reason perhaps why jeffrey sachs didn't like nina's book. another quote from the book.

it's never easy to disagree with jeffrey sachs. you might trigger an argument. you might ruffle his feathers but in all likelihood he will make you feel small. you might call you misguided or ill-informed or ignorant. that's clearly not a good reference for anybody to run such project. let me finally just lead off with a quote from easterly on the general subject of where he stands and have nina comment on it. it's not that we choose aid or no aid, is easterly's message. aid has had some focused successes such as vaccination programs.

>> any final comments before we have questions? >> i couldn't agree more with that. i don't think that i agree entirely with bill easterly on all the platforms, but i agree with that. i feel strongly and i myself believe deeply in charity and i believe in foreign aid, but i think it's very, very important to differentiate between charity, between doing good and so-called development. when i give money to an organization i adore called mary to meals that helps provide free lunches for school children in poverty-stricken areas, i don't imagine i'm changing the world or the course of history. i'm neither that eric and -- i

just, i just don't believe that's possible. >> all right. we can leave it open to questions. >> this is great. thank you very much. to question. the singer, bono, is very close to jeff sachs and he is in recent years, particularly a couple weeks ago made an announcement about the virtues of free trade and direct investment and helping the developing world out of poverty. is moving more and more in that direction. i was wondering if you happened to intervene because him because of his closest to jeff sachs? when will the day of reckoning, for sachs and the millennium project? only, the proof will be be in te pudding some day. it will become publicly known and when will that day of reckoning, and when will the jury be and are out or whatever

juries to? >> i did, in fact, interview bono. he was charming. he was one of the nicest people i've interviewed. academy hold -- he did know me up for hours. that's something that celebrities do to portugal's. that i think you are right. i think bono is very much reflecting what the popular opinion is. went on to begin with jeffrey sachs, when i started working on this story, it was very much that moment where the general public seemed to be behind the great surge in foreign aid. there was a real belief i think still then, or at least popular support for heavy influxes of foreign aid. and i think we've seen a dramatic shift, and most recently with obama's visit to africa i think it's been a pointedly clear that the popular opinion is absolutely not to increase foreign aid. americans survey after survey are against that, for better or for worse. but that more and more there's

an idea that what we should be doing is backing investments in africa and helping businesses develop and helping the economic growth that quite frankly is happening in some countries rather vigorously. and i forget you a question. oh, yes, my book. weed my book. >> a day of reckoning. >> very soon, i'm hopeful. >> the great economist taught me years ago that aid, foreign aid from government and government can do harm and does arms and provide empowering and strengthening governments to suppress development in their own countries. so the whole approach that aid can only do good sometimes, from government especially can do harm. by again suppressing development. >> or by supporting a corrupt government. >> precisely. that's what it meant to say.

>> is there any indication that george soros or any of his staffers have read your book? >> i have a soft spot for george soros, because to his great credit he was really -- i interviewed him very early on in this project without you started out. he had just given $50 million to jeff sachs at the time and he was a very -- is a cool customer. he said very casually, you know, 50 million bucks. he said look, it might work, it might not work. the worst thing that happens is it doesn't work and that just given away 50 million bucks or humanitarian cause. and hey, if it does work, well, i mean, that's a that i'm willing to take. as you know, george source is some who likes bats, high-stakes bets. >> which you give george soros a call tomorrow morning and think what he thinks now of what is $50 million bid and where else he might spend that money.

may be unreal development. anyway, i'm done. >> or on a honeymoon. he got married lastly. i haven't read your book and all the reviews i've read and what a virgin that i'm inclined to read. what i don't understand from what i've heard so far is what were the methods he employs? what was he doing with the money? how was it being spent and what was the plan to? >> that's a very good question. kind of a fundamental question. parts are just tell you to read my book. the truth of the matter is there's nothing but jeff sachs prescriptions that are actually novel. what to jeff sachs was prescribing is they be dead in a systematic, scientific way with everything at once. rather than just building a school in a poor community or digging a well, his idea was that people were trapped by poverty in a way that if he just looked after one problem without solving all of them, holistically, as academics like to say, that there was no point.

so it was really a matter of single-minded focus and doing a lot of things all at the same time, putting in a health care clinic, recruiting nurses, building wealth, bringing in diesel generators, solving the water problem and trying to take everything all at one go. >> infrastructure? >> a combination. some infrastructure, some very basic health services and schools and bringing in teachers, better medical care, mosquito nets. sort of a packet of a dozen, let's say, basic interventions. fertilizer and high-yield seeds, and vaccinations for livestock. so really a packet of fairly low-cost intervention that come in his mind, when you threw them all together and did all at once had a sort of exponential impa impact.

>> i have to confess, nina munk is actually my friend and classmate from columbia journalism. but i will ask a legitimate question last night i'm originally from uganda and i was with a ugandan a short while ago worked with jeffrey sachs on some of these programs, and he said a key problem was that he didn't listen a lot. he wanted, for example, to talk to presidents and not secretaries or ministries to ask a new is happening on the ground. my question is, how much was it about jeffrey sachs caring about the people and projects, and how much was it about him trying to prove that jeffrey sachs could do this amazing thing, that perhaps would never be duplicated again and be remembered for a long time? because he wanted why with all these connections why did he

have programs that could make capital available to african entrepreneurs. we know they're entrepreneurs who lack access to capital. my final question is, do you think as a consequent of the cell experts with jeffrey sachs there's going to be some sort of backlash, people that might want to engage africa effectively will become a little reluctant now because of the buried with jeffrey sachs? >> this is such an interesting question. i myself pondered often with jeffrey sachs, was he just diluted or was he conning himself questioned, it was often difficult for me to understand why he didn't seem to be following the advice on the ground, and why he didn't seem able to change course as i think watching it from the outside, it seemed that he should have.

and i think in the end, i feel very strongly he, as some of you know, he has been sharply critical of me and my book since it has come out, and i think there's a real poignancy there and the sadness because of course you have to wonder, is refusing to engage in some the ideas in the book and refusing to discuss openly some of the failures of the project, is that in the best interest of the poor people in rural africa, or is that in the best interests of jeff sachs personally? and i think that's what you are alluding to, and it's something that i can only venture to guess that. i really don't know. i forget which are of the question was. oh, i was also going to say something though. you mentioned about the under secretaries and other people in

the african ministries at lower levels. the truth of the matter is, i think in some way everyone is in this together when it comes to not really telling the truth about the failures of the program. and i think that not only the villagers whom i interviewed, not only the secretaries at different levels and the government and the ministries in africa, not only to presidents, the last thing they want, even if they no that jeffrey sachs subprograms ludicrous and will never work, they're perfectly happy for obvious reasons to continue to encourage the infusion of aid. the villagers themselves, one of the astonishing discoveries when you spend enough time in these villages, to discover how quickly these villagers realize that when the outsiders, when the white guys, the rich guys show up, how quickly they have to assume a certain persona pickup quickly after sure that visitor that his donations are

going to good use but i think any of us would do that. that's called survival and you would be stupid not to. so that becomes a kind of interdependency that can be quite dangerous. at some point, who is going to break the glass, pull the emergency trip and say this is a bloody joke. very few people spent backlash. >> excellent point. i raised the point, i think i alluded to in my book. this is the terrible than jeffrey sachs has accused me of cynicism. i am not cynical. i am skeptical but i'm someone who believes deeply that transparency is the way forward. that the only way you can make the donors want to help is to be fully transparent and to reveal and to speak openly about not just the successes but also the failures. and by speaking about the failures, you, i think, accord more weight to the successes. people are more likely to

believe in the successes if you're honest about the failures. i think it could be a terrible backlash that worries me deeply. >> that was really interesting. i worked with jeffrey sachs and have continued to work with the institute. so it was really interesting to hear your perspective on it. and i think, i'm not sure i agree with everything but i do think one thing you've done really well is highlighting how complex and difficult it is to do. and i think one aspect it's difficult to measure success, impact and causality. i wonder if you could reflect a little bit on what the villagers would've been like, the state of the villagers would've been without the interventions of the millennium villages project. >> i think it's such an important point because part of the difficulty with reviews and even a short talk like this is that people talk of these

projects very much in the black and white. it's a success or a failure and actually not the case at all. it was something no doubt, and i make it patently clear in my book, that when you pour $10 million into a village, or even $5 million, or frankly even half a million dollars, you're going to see some magnificent success stories. you see the impact of foreign aid anywhere you go in africa. people's lives are saved people are lifted out of poverty. people have the opportunity to go to school might otherwise might never have gone to school. children are pulled out of malaria comas. and it is extraordinary to witness and to make everyone in this room willing to give money to africa, when you see it firsthand, trust me. that, however, that kind of success, that kind of small-scale, incremental, personal success where your talk about helping a single person, or 100 people, is something very

different than what jeffrey sachs promised us. and i think jeffrey sachs and many people have stated this, jeffrey sachs is great failings was over promise, and the title of his book, "the end of poverty," says it all. he was going to give us a model to end poverty decisively in our lifetime, and he was going to give us a model that could be scaled up and could be replicated in any environment. that is what to this day no one has figured out how to do. none of us knows how to do it, unfortunately. development economists can argue until the cows come home, and they will not have a solution because we don't know how people are uplifted out of poverty. we have an inkling. we understand it's related to economic growth and we understand that prosperity and wealth are related but we don't know what the drivers are and what exactly makes it happen, otherwise we would have ended poverty by now. spent one thing i wanted to add

as a follow-up to that. i think one thing, i don't know if you touched on in the book but one thing that's interesting to mention is that jeff is working across scale, so there's the millennium villages project but i think through the development goals are not sustainable development goals that jeff is helping to lead with the secretary-general. he's also raising awareness at a very high political level -- >> no question about it. two chapters of the book are devoted to is really extraordinary work on malaria, for example, and he's done i think probably more than anyone in advancing the very, very practical ways to try to reduce malaria, transmission in africa. he has been a magnificent advocate on that front. and so, yeah, you should e-mail me after you should e-mail me after you read the book and i'd be interested to know what you think. >> i'd like that. >> excuse me.

hold the microphone. >> i just wanted to know, are you aware and, in fact, did anyone else describe are mentioned the fact that most african nations are at the bottom of the economic freedom indices, that is, after is the most overrated region in the world by a significant margin? did it ever come up? >> is that a rhetorical question? >> no. i'm always checking because -- >> i think one of the fascinating things about my book or about this journey i traveled on, which i say that you should say, is jeffrey sachs himself progressed from original just thinking he could go in and provide water and better health care and better schools, and at some point along the way relies very quickly, it strikes one as obvious in hindsight as things often do, in fact the key to this was providing some sort of business infrastructure. and suddenly he began to

scramble to figure out a way to get businesses up and running, and the only way to great long-term wealth as melvin said earlier as well, is to great businesses. and for africa as you say, as for many countries that remained poor, remain mired in poverty, it's very often one discovers that there is enormous amount of regulation strangling places, or the corruption is so intense you cayoucan't start a business unls you pay often people, or there are no roads to get your product out of the village, or there are any other number of serious hurdles to starting businesses. and naturally, it's a terrible, terrible problem. >> just one more question. in your book, you document that early on jeffrey sachs wanted deregulation for russia. he wanted deregulation basically, let's have capitalism for some of these other countries. he's been accused of being oddly inconsistent in debt.

that. he didn't think the africans should have the regulation. he didn't emphasize that in the same way he had for some of these other countries. >> to be fair, he didn't not think africans should have the. that was not what he began his quest to end poverty in africa. arguably he could have started with it. that wasn't the way he went about it, rightly or wrongly. >> next question. >> do you address the corruption of the leadership in africa? and my other question is, china's involvement. the chinese government involvement in that country for their self-interest. >> no. it's about such important important issues of course for the continent. and i do absolutely address corruption. i go out of my way in the book not to -- my book, i tried very hard and i think anyone who has read can attest to this. i just covered lightly and i just observe and i let my reader

reach his or her own conclusions. so i think easy over and over again the fact that the government clearly, things go missing and things disappear, and money goes missing and solar panels just disappear overnight. i think i allude to the problems of corruption, and yet my book is not about corruption. it's about something much larger, of which corruption is one part. and china also is something that a talk about in the book, but again, the book is not about china. china is such an important model not only as we all live in plowing enormous amounts of money into africa, but interestingly china itself at this point has lifted hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty more successful than anyone else in recent years, and have their own methods of doing that. and whether those methods are relevant to africa or not is a question that i posed to a certain to answer it. but i think it's something that is on the forefront of the minds

of anyone who is arrested in the subject. >> you said that you're not cynical but you skeptical. i was just wondering if this experience make you more broadly skeptical of experts, maybe lots of scientists and esteemed experts and politicians across the board, academics, are actually useless gas bags or just self promoters, something like that? >> are you a journalist by chance? >> sometimes. >> i think you can't possibly be a journalist unless you question everything you hear. we are targeted at, and, and many people call us cynical. many people complain about us. i've heard it all, and they may be right, they may be wrong but i would say that i don't trust any experts. and that's just my professional constitution. i'm