Sachs, Jeffrey D(avid) (1954– )

US economist. Sachs left academia in 1986 to apply his theories of international economics to real-world situations. After serving as an adviser in South America, he became the architect of Polish economic reform – his 1990 ‘Sachs Plan’ controversially calling for an immediate conversion to a capitalist economy. He went on to become an adviser to the Russian parliament under Boris Yeltsin and to the governments of Estonia and Slovenia. Sachs directed the Harvard Institute for International Development 1995–99 and the Center for International Development 1999–2002. At Columbia University he is director of the Earth Institute, professor of Health Policy and Management, and professor of Sustainable Development. He was also director of the United Nations Millennium Project 2002–06, serves as a special advisor to the UN Secretary-General, and is president of Millennium Promise Alliance (a nonprofit organization targeting extreme global poverty).