"Jeffrey David Sachs" is an United States/American economist and director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. One of the youngest tenured professors in the United States/economics professors in the history of Harvard University (at age 28), Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing national governments during the transition from communism to a market system or during periods of economic crisis. Subsequently he has been known for his work on the challenges of economic development, Sustainability/environmental sustainability, Poverty reduction/poverty alleviation, Debt of developing countries/debt cancellation, and globalization.

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In 1991, a miraculous thing happened, and that's the Soviet Union ended. So there was an opportunity to build a very healthy and new world, on the basis of the change that the Russian people themselves wanted. But for Russia to make that change was going to be one of the most remarkably difficult and complex passages imaginable.

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In Asia, a lot of successful economies that had been living on their own saving, decided to open up their financial markets to international capital in the early 1990s. So here were countries doing quite well, but they decided they'd borrow a bit more and do even better.

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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.

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Russia increasingly lived on short-term borrowing. Now, this was an extraordinary merry-go-round.

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The essential truth for developing countries is, if you try to live by yourself, you will cut yourself off from the amazing progress of world technology. You won't be able to purchase the goods that you need from abroad, because you're not exporting to the rest of the world. You have to be part of the world system.

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Russia has gone through eight years of continuing economic pain.

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For many parts of the world, the chasm that has to be crossed to get from where they were, whether it's a dictatorship, economic collapse, financial crisis or all of the above, to the other side, that is a working market economy and a functioning democracy, is extraordinarily difficult and requires help.

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Globalization was a deep trend pushed by technology and right ideas, as much as anything else.

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Business often does a good job supporting communities: the arts, universities, and scientific enterprises... But that philosophy has rarely reached poor countries. Even businesses that are enlightened in their home bases see Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia as places to exploit natural resources or use cheap labor.

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