PROFESSOR Jeffrey D. Sachs is like a magnet that draws in the hopes of millions of the worlds poor. On the shoulders of this special advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), is placed the goal of reducing extreme poverty, disease and starvation by the year 2015.

Where poverty is concerned, Sachs is not just anybody. This health and management expert from Columbia University in New York, USA, has been f