Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent US economist and a special adviser to the UN secretary general, argues in a new book that extreme poverty could be eradicated by 2025.

In The End of Poverty, he says much will depend on the choices made by Americans, who are paying a far smaller share of their income in foreign aid than they promised three years ago, and only a 30th of the "nearly $500bn [£260bn] the US will spend this year on the military".

"Currently, more than eight million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive. Yet our generation, in the US and abroad, can choose to end extreme poverty by the year 2025," he writes.

Professor Sachs is the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the head of the UN's Millennium Project, formulating anti-poverty goals.

In an excerpt from his book published in Time magazine, he says there is little evidence that corruption has been the main obstacle to development in Africa, where extreme poverty is concentrated.

Rather, he blames the geographical and climactic conditions that have contributed to drought and disease.

He quotes World Bank figures showing that more than a billion people suffer extreme, or life-threatening poverty, and sets out nine broadly defined steps that should be taken to address the problem.

One is: "Redeem the US role in the world."

He writes: "The richest and most powerful country, long the leader and inspiration in democratic ideals, is barely participating in global efforts to end poverty and protect the environment, thus undermining its own security."

He says it is time to honour George Bush's Monterrey Consensus commitment, made at the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development, to give 0.7% of US national income to foreign development goals.

Few countries have crossed that threshold, but the US has performed worst of all in the developed world, he says.

"In 2002, the US gave $3 per sub-Saharan African. Taking out the parts for US consultants and technical cooperation, food and other emergency aid, administrative costs and debt relief, the aid per African came to the grand total of perhaps 6 [cents]."

US officials argue that much of its aid is delivered in the form of military assistance at times of international crisis, and is also paid in private donations.

Another of his recommended steps is, "Rescue the IMF and World Bank", which he insists have the experience and expertise to play an important role but have "been used like debt-collection agencies for the big creditor countries".

Prof Sachs rose to prominence 15 years ago as the chief designer of "shock therapy" for the post-communist economies of Poland and Russia, emphasising an immediate transition to free markets and drastic cuts in state spending.

In his new book he argues that the market-oriented prescriptions of the IMF have been part of the problem, by cutting away at the fabric of poor societies.

© Copyright 2005 Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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