Public Agenda - Why Debt Relief is a Palatable Painkiller.

(From The Nation (Kenya) - AAGM)

Byline: Jared Osoro

For a while now Jeffrey Sachs has literally been on Sabbatical from economics, taking activism almost full time. He has spent his time well, being the prefect of the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) and a backing vocalist of U2's Bono in the chartbuster hit, "All Africa's debt should be written off". Oh, and the good professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University even has had time to write a widely acclaimed book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities of our Times, published in 2005.

To a non-suspecting reader, an important disclaimer in its first paragraph of the introductory chapter, that "I'm not predicting what will happen, only explaining what can happen" may pass unnoticed. To me it represents an all-rounded Sachs, with Sir Bob Geldof - the knighted Irish rock crooner - making good company, just as the reggae sensational Shaggy could. Simply, come 2015 and we are far from meeting the MGDs, Sachs would switch tunes and surmise, as Shaggy would, that "It wasn't me!"

It's the interim behaviour that feeds into enhancing the possibility of …