Maputo — Renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), declared in Maputo on Tuesday that, for poor countries such as Mozambique, achieving the MDGs "is matter of life or death, not just of economics".

The MDGs were approved by pretty well every government in the world at the UN's Millennium Summit in 2000. They include such targets as cutting extreme poverty by half, reversing the spread of AIDS, reducing child mortality by two thirds and maternal mortality by three quarters, and ensuring full primary education for every child.

Yet rich countries have not yet provided the increase in resources needed to meet these targets, and at the current rate many sub-Saharan African countries will not meet the MDGs by the cut-off date of 2015.

The Millennium Goals "are not just about GDP", said Sachs, at a well-attended public meeting in one of Maputo's largest conference halls. "They're about whether children die in infancy, whether they die of malaria, whether children will be healthy enough to go to school and play a role in the economy of the 21st century".

Sachs was convinced that countries such as Mozambique, with a reasonable level of governance, and with a solid policy framework in place, could achieve the MDGs. But that would require investment in agriculture, which is where most of the poor work.

The key difference between Asia and Africa, he argued, was that Asian agriculture is much more productive, because of the green revolution - a revolution which in its early stages had required heavy state subsidies to farmers.

But in Africa "the green revolution didn't take place", said Sachs, largely because "20 years ago the World Bank started to campaign against subsidies to agriculture. They said you have to let the market do it. But the market has never led a green revolution".

Sachs attacked the "market fundamentalism" which had said "no subsidies ! Reduce the size of the public sector !" "The hypothesis was that, if the government got out of agriculture, then the market would lead to a rise in productivity", he said. "My view is that, if you run an experiment for 20 years, and it doesn't work, then you stop the experiment".

Sachs saw some promising signs that the World Bank and IMF were changing their approach. At a recent meeting in Abuja, African leaders proposed subsidies for inputs such as fertiliser to allow the poor to climb out of the poverty trap. The IMF and the World Bank are prepared to support this.

Second in importance to agriculture, in Sachs' view, was health care. Proven technologies exist to cope with killer disease and are easy to apply. The simplest is the insecticide treated mosquito net. If every child in Africa slept under such a net, then deaths and sickness from malaria would be dramatically reduced.

A good bed net lasts five years before it needs to be retreated with insecticides. It costs five dollars and two children can sleep under it. Sachs thought that was an extraordinarily good bargain: a child's life for 50 cents a year.

But he inveighed against the policy of trying to sell bed nets. "You can't expect people who have no money to buy bed nets!", he exclaimed. "You have to give the nets away, not sell them. Enough of social marketing !" Bed nets were as crucial to child health as vaccination, "and imagine trying to sell a measles vaccine, instead of giving it away".

There were those who argue that Mozambique does not have the "absorptive capacity" to use more aid. "But how difficult can it be to absorb a bed net ?", asked Sachs.

He pointed out that there have been highly successful free bed net distribution campaigns in parts of west Africa. The government of Niger provided bed nets to 70 per cent of the population in a week.

Sachs approved of the philosophy behind the government's Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty (PARPA II) - but criticised its targets as too modest.

Currently only 36 per cent of the population has "easy access" to a health unit: the government plan seeks to raise this figure to 45 per cent by 2009. "We should not write a target into our plan that by 2009 we will only increase access to health services by nine percentage points", said Sachs. "That's not a target - it's a surrender".

"PARPA II is not ambitious enough, and we know why", he added. "The backing of the international community isn't there.

They say "Don't go too fast. You haven't got the absorptive capacity".

As for those who claim that Mozambique cannot attain the MDGs because there isn't enough money, Sachs retorted there would be plenty of money if donors abided by their longstanding pledge to provide 0.7 per cent of their GDP in development aid. That would raise 250 billion dollars a year. But current aid flows are only 80-90 billion dollars a year. Since there are about 1.2 billion people on the planet living in extreme poverty, the 250 billion dollars of theoretical aid would amount to rather more than 200 dollars per capita per year.

Meeting the MDGs would cost between 75 and 100 dollars per capita per year.

The greatest scandal of all lies in Sachs' home country, the United States. US aid to Africa amounts to only four billion dollars a year: US spending on its own military is 550 billion dollars a year. Sachs calculated that the amount spent on the Pentagon in one day would be sufficient to provide bed nets for every child in Africa.

"I can't guarantee that we will get the money, but I can tell you that the money is there", he said. "Furthermore, the rich countries have a real security incentive to make good on their promises. I keep telling my countrymen, that if we want national security, then we must spend on development".

In reality the costs of the MDGs "are very small", he insisted. "But the costs of not achieving them are very large.

You cannot afford not to meet these goals. This is a very dangerous world, and it's particularly dangerous if you're poor".