"I think it is very ironic for those that have the means to make a dent in the desperate poverty conditions of the world's poor," Sachs said in an exclusive interview with The Earth Times, "to say that UN is making lofty declarations, that it is holding a talk fest. I would like to remind them, that they are the ones that signed up to these commitments [referring to the Rio commitments and Millennium Development Goals]. It is their moral and political obligation to meet them. Instead of blaming the UN they should explain to the world why they have broken their promises."

The World Summit on Sustainable Development is taking place against the backdrop of 10 years of substantial failures to implement the agreed agenda of the Rio summit: Agenda 21. Sachs estimates that if the developed world were to commit to putting aside just one penny out of every $10, it would create a fund of $25 billion--an amount that the WHO study predicts would save 8 million lives per year.

Sachs, who is currently a special adviser to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is arguably one of the most eloquent voices today in promoting development. Long affiliated with Harvard, first as a student and since the early '80s as a professor, in early 2002, Sachs was recently named director of the Columbia University Earth Institute. He is also the most vocal advocate of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) that aim to reduce absolute global poverty by half by 2015. Some 189 Heads of State signed on to the MDG's at the Millennium Summit in September 2000.

"The MDG's are the recycling of old goals set at Rio that have not been met," said Sachs. "They have now been recalibrated for a new deadline. Their success will depend on the commitments made by rich countries to finance them by providing 0.7 percent of their GDP."

Achieving the MDG would require doubling the Official Development Assistance (ODA) to $50 billion. At the UN's Financing for Development conference in Monterrey, Mexico, early this year, ODA took a marginally positive turn. The ODA forthcoming from donor countries -- that had been declining for decades -- began to increase. But the amounts that were committed -- would result in increasing ODA by $12 billion beyond the current figure of $40 billion in the next few years-- one fourth of what was deemed as minimal necessity to meet the MDG's. UNDP, which is the scorekeeper and campaign manager of the MDG's has confirmed that dozens of countries are seriously off track to meet these goals.

Sachs pointed out that dismal progress on sustainable development in the last decade -- is not due to due to developing countries not being able to deliver on good governance but specifically because of the backtracking on commitments made by donor governments. Sachs contends that the donor countries have cut funding even in countries that have delivered on good governance, especially in Africa.

There are countries in Africa, such as Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, that Sachs points out have multiparty democratic governments that are urgently trying to face the needs of their people but are still unable to access the level of assistance that they need.

Sachs elaborated that he personally reviewed the proposal of funding that the Government of Malawi prepared to address their AIDS problem. While the donor countries admitted it was a very good proposal, they felt too much was being asked of them financially. An exasperated Sachs said, "In effect they were saying, we will not come up with the dollar a day which will help thousands of your people alive."

"If the debate is about good governance, then everyone has to deliver on them including the rich," said Sachs. "We here cannot sit here and lecture governments about good governance and not apply that rule to us. United States and EU need to be held accountable."

But the big question here is whether it is realistic to expect more. Sachs thinks it is. The developed world is an economy that generates $25 trillion in annual GNP. The US is presently spending 0.1 percent of 1 percent in ODA, one-seventh of what has widely been considered to be an international norm.

When asked if the low commitments from US could be attributed to the state of its present economy, a notably amused Sachs responded: "The US is a $10 trillion economy. When the US was rich and booming, it was giving little money, now when the US is in recession it is giving little money." "When the stock market had raised more than $10 trillion, it was giving little money. Now when the stock market has plunged, it is giving little money," noted Sachs. When there was a $4 trillion cumulative projected budget surplus, US was giving little money, now that the budget surplus has been vanquished it is giving little money."

Commenting on the absence of US leadership here at the Summit, Sachs said that he felt very uncomfortable about his country's commitment. "When almost the entire world is in Johannesburg discussing the urgency of sustainable development," Sachs noted, "Washington is discussing a potential new war on Iraq. This is a great risk for the US foreign policy and a significant risk for the world, which is discussing a common agenda without the US."

So what are Sachs expectations of this conference and who should be held accountable if the world, yet again, fails its poor? "It is my personal view that if there are no new financial commitments that come forward," said Sachs, "it will be fair to ask if the rich countries are serious about sustainable development. It will be very unfair to ask what is the UN doing holding these meetings."