The poor are still with us.

The End of Poverty By Jeffrey Sachs Penguin Group US$16

Jeffrey Sachs, considered by The New York Times to be one of the world's most famous economists, shares in his new book 25 years of experience traveling and researching the poorest reaches in the planet in The End of Poverty.

Sachs became famous in the 1980s when he proposed "shock therapy" to rescue troubled nations from economic and social misery. Shock therapy largely involved a hefty dose of open-market reforms, such as a floating currency and the end of subsidies, and the results continue to draw both praise and fire today. Sachs, an adviser to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, is back with the goal of ridding the world of extreme poverty, defined as per-capita income of less than US$1 per day, within 25 years. "The poor, even the 1 billion poorest of them, are not necessarily fated to be so," he writes.

In the beginning of modern times, economic inequalities among different countries across the planet were not that significant, Sachs posits. The big gap between rich and poor countries really emerged in the nineteenth century, when the United States and Western Europe saw rapid economic growth and industrialization, improving income and living conditions within their borders.

Yet there are several reasons, not just success in the developed world, why some countries are rich and others are poor, and why the gap between them is leading many of the poorest countries deeper into the abyss of poverty. To varying degrees, the government's role in economic management matters, as do corruption and demographics, as well as how ethnic and religious tensions can hurt an economy. According to Sachs, in countries where the government fosters greater economic and commercial freedom, economic development is at its highest degree. Sachs also points out that investment, trade and private sector activity have reduced poverty in countries such as India and China.

In short, Sachs is a supporter of free markets, which he sees as a necessary tool to eradicate the misery of poverty. However, the solution does not lie solely in the private sector's hands. Before poor nations can establish a capitalist system that will lead them toward development, it is necessary to have a basic infrastructure: ports, roads and electricity at adequate levels, he argues. Federal governments should take charge of creating and improving this infrastructure. Governments must also take the initiative to improve education and healthcare. Once the foundation for progress is in place, a market economy can put poor nations onto the rungs of what Sachs refers to as the ladder of development.

Sachs also provides a well-structured plan for fostering long-term economic development, a plan in which already prosperous countries help those that are falling behind. According to Sachs, aid from rich countries should equal 0.7% of the rich country's gross domestic product, a very small amount but one that would help poor countries survive. Sachs has butted heads with multilateral lending institutions such as the International Monetary Fund in calling for a convergence between the public and the private sectors that he says would save hundreds of thousands of human beings from a lifetime of misery.

Compassion. With this book, which is based on his studies and experiences in emerging economies including Bolivia, Russia and all over sub-Saharan Africa, the author calls on the industrialized world to dig deep into their pockets and find the generosity needed to rescue the poor.

For Sachs, helping the needy is not only an issue of compassion. It's an economic one as well. Eliminating extreme poverty, he writes, will do away with epidemics, social unrest, immigration and terrorism. The end of poverty by 2025 might seem an impossible goal, but giving it a wholehearted effort Hill result in a stronger global economy.