Jeffrey Sachs Will Be Sargent Shriver Award Honoree

The Shriver Center is pleased to honor Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs with the 2005 Sargent Shriver Award for Equal Justice for Distinguished Achievement in Promoting Poverty Alleviation.

Professor Sachs is the Director of Columbia University’s The Earth Institute, which houses the Poverty Reduction initiative. This initiative provides governments with academic studies and policy analyses on the issues of poverty reduction from the perspective of sustainable development. The Poverty Reduction initiative stresses the integration of economics, agriculture, hydrology, energy systems, public health, climate-society interactions, and governance, including a focus on the role of human rights in promoting poverty alleviation.

Professor Sachs’s work as an international economist and social justice advocate has outlined specific steps to end global poverty. Like our founder, Sargent Shriver, Professor Sachs has challenged how we see and respond to the poorest among us. He proves government supported programs can foster self-sufficiency without creating a culture of dependency. By joining practical economics with an optimistic faith, he is working to help poor communities rise from poverty.

Professor Sachs is author of more than 200 scholarly articles, edited volumes, and books. His most recent work The End of Poverty: The Economic Possibilities of Our Time (2005) sets a bold agenda for ending extreme poverty by 2025.