Press release: The World's Best-known Economist Jeffrey D. Sachs in Official Visit to Montenegro

Podgorica, 12 August 2004 The Government of Montenegro, in association with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) LO Podgorica, is organizing official visit of Prof. Jeffrey Sachs to Montenegro. The visit of one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 will take place on the 16th and 17th of August 2004, as a follow-up to the Conference on Sustainable Development in the Republic of Montenegro hosted by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and UNDP in New York on 19th April 2004.

On the occasion of Prof. Sachs visit to Montenegro, the Government and UNDP will organize a set of official high level working sessions to address some of the crucial development issues for Montenegro. The following topics will be covered: Reform of the Banking Sector in Montenegro, Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy: Moving Toward Implementation, Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Tourism and Poverty: How to link the three and lower barriers to business, and Millennium Development Goals: Costing. These areas will be basis for a two-day discussion, where the globally renowned expert in development issues and globalization will provide recommendations on how to integrate their efforts in order to ensure the overall sustainable development in Montenegro.



Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. Sachs is internationally renowned for his work as economic advisor to governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa, and his work with international agencies on problems of poverty reduction, debt cancellation for the poorest countries, and disease control. He has been an advisor to all the major international financial institutions (IMF, World Bank, OECD, World Health Organization, UNDP).

In April 2004 Professor Sachs was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, and the World Affairs Council of America identified him as one of the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy. In February 2002 Nature Magazine stated that Sachs "has revitalized public health thinking since he brought his financial mind to it." In 1993 he was cited in The New York Times Magazine as "probably the most important economist in the world" and called in Time Magazines 1994 issue on 50 promising young leaders "the world's best-known economist." In 1997, the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur cited Professor Sachs as one of the world's 50 most important leaders on globalization.

Prof. Sachs' research interests include the links of health and development, economic geography, globalization, transition to market economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, international financial markets, international macroeconomic policy coordination, emerging markets, economic development and growth, global competitiveness, and macroeconomic policies in developing and developed countries.


The Conference on Sustainable Development in the Republic of Montenegro held on the 19th April 2004 in New York, with the attendance of the Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, and President of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation Stephen Heintz, gathered many leading persons from the specialized international organizations and experts in the field of sustainable development. Having participated in panel discussions, Prof. Sachs highlighted the importance of the Montenegro Sustainable Development Strategy linking to the Millennium Development Goals.



For more information, please contact:

Ms. Olivera Djukanovic, Chief of Government PR Bureau, +381 81 242 566, www.gom.cg.yu
Ms. Ana Jankovic, UNDP LO Communications Assistant, +381 67 553 002, www.undp.org.yu/montenegro