The journalist and Vanity Fair contributing editor Nina Munk discusses Africa, aid and her new book, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty (Signal, 2013), with Joseph Planta.

The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty by Nina Munk (Signal, 2013). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Idealist

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

A new book looks at extreme poverty in Africa, and the one person who a few years ago spearheaded an effort to end it. In The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, the journalist Nina Munk looks at the economist and his high profile Millennium Villages Project, a campaign that with many millions would remake communities in Africa and alleviate poverty. As declaimed in his bestselling 2005 book, The End of Poverty, Sachs is of the belief that if certain interventions are made such as the building of schools and wells, introducing certain crops and mosquito nets, and vaccinations for people and livestock, among other things, then perhaps untold millions could be lifted out of poverty. In this book, Ms. Munk, who joins me now, went to Africa with Sachs, as well as on her own, and in this book she reports on what progress has been made if any. She also looks at this figure, a brilliant economist, surrounded by celebrity friends, whose idealism has shaped more than his image, but the lives of many already. Nina Munk is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, who has written three other books, including Fools Rush In, which was the book on the AOL Time Warner merger. This current book is published by Signal, which is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart. She lives in New York, but joins me from Toronto this day. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Nina Munk; Ms. Munk, good morning.

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