Many men and women, from every corner of the globe, have contributed in some way to poverty alleviation efforts. This section examines the lives and impacts of a few of them.

• Kofi Annan (1938- ): current Secretary-General of the United Nations
  Kofi Annan is a native of Ghana, Africa. His education included undergraduate work in economics in both Kumasi and Minnesota and graduate work in Geneva. Read More.... He received a master’s degree in management from M.I.T. in 1971. Annan’s entire career has been with the United Nations. He began in 1962 working with W.H.O. in Geneva. Since then, he has worked in various capacities for the U.N. in Addis Ababa, Ismailia, Kuwait, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and at headquarters in New York. He has led the United Nations in Middle East peacekeeping operations. The first to come from the United Nation’s ranks, Annan was elected as Secretary-General in 1997 and is currently serving his second term. In addition to his peacekeeping efforts, Annan has labored to improve the status of women and human rights, to increase the availability of education, to reduce HIV/AIDS, and to alleviate world poverty. These efforts have reformed and revitalized the United Nations earning Annan and the United Nations the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. Collapse...



• William Henry Gates III (1922-1995): co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, philanthropist
  William Henry Gates III, also referred to as Bill Gates, was born in Seattle, Washington in 1955. Gates enrolled in Harvard University, but left during his third year in order to begin his career in software development. Read More.... By the early 1980’s, Gates invented Microsoft Windows with his business partners. They successfully parlayed this into a billion dollar business with Gates becoming the wealthiest person in the world. He remained CEO of Microsoft until 1998. Gates has channeled approximately one third of his lifetime income to charity through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This foundation sponsors minority scholarships, HIV/AIDS prevention, poverty alleviation efforts, and several other causes. Bill and Melinda Gates along with Bono were named TIME magazine’s 2005 “people of the year” for their philanthropic endeavors. Collapse...



• James P. Grant (1922-1995): UNICEF Executive Director, 1985-1990
  James P. Grant’s passion for helping children led to many beneficial improvements worldwide. Grant, a U.S. citizen, lived from 1922 to 1995. Read More.... He began his career by holding a series of jobs working with the American government and its agencies. He excelled in the U.S. International Co-operation Administration and was appointed Deputy Director in 1958. Next Grant became the first head of the Overseas Development Council until he left to direct UNICEF. During his 15 years as director, James Grant achieved three major milestones in improving global conditions for children. First Grant directed UNICEF in fighting a “global silent emergency” which was the horrendous death rate of children caused by simple illnesses. This campaign began in 1983 and used international, national, and local proposals to create life-saving medical systems in developing countries. Since then, this campaign has saved over 12 million children. During the late 1980s, James P. Grant next embarked on another project to help children. Grant furthered The Convention on the Rights of a Child which was passed by the United Nations and became an international law in 1989. UNICEF continued these ideas with the 1990 World Summit for Children, Grant’s third achievement. This first large gathering of the Heads of Sate and governments formulated an international “plan of action” which defined goals for children’s benefits. Grant actively pushed this process and encouraged countries to participate. For the first time, the world started work at the highest political level on international goals to reduce poverty’s consequences. Grant continued his work until his death. Collapse...



• Paul David Hewson (1960- ): lead singer of U2, philanthropist:
  Paul David Hewson was raised in Dublin, Ireland. His formal education ended before he finished high school when he left school to join the band that was ultimately named U2. Read More.... This band rose to fame and fortune while Hewson acquired the nickname, Bono Vox or Bono, meaning “the voice to the good man”. Bono’s philanthropic efforts began in 1985 with the charity benefit concert Band Aid. Since then, Bono tirelessly has campaigned for world poverty reduction through third world debt relief and other contributing factors. Bono personally and successfully has lobbied his cause to both the Prime Minister of Canada and President George W. Bush of the United States. He was a bona fide candidate for the 2005 position as president of the World Bank. Bono along with Bill and Melinda Gates was named TIME magazine’s “people of the year” for his philanthropy. Collapse...



• Robert McNamara (1918- ): former World Bank President
  Robert McNamara grew up in California. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley as an economics major and from Harvard Business School in 1937. Read More.... McNamara served in the military during World War II and then worked at Ford Motor Company. He was named president of Ford in 1960, but left four weeks later after being named Secretary of Defense. McNamara was a great defense leader under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson although as the Vietnam War progressed, his views became controversial. Subsequently, President Johnson named McNamara president of the World Bank. He served in this capacity from 1968 until 1981. As president, McNamara better defined the role of the World Bank, greatly enlarged its capacity, and waged a war on poverty. He believed that the problems of the developing worlds could be solved. This led to the Bank’s aggressive mission to emphasize the needs of the developing world which stemmed from income disparity and poverty. Under McNamara the World Bank became a universal organization growing to include Egypt, Indonesia, and the People’s Republic of China. During his tenure the World Bank’s commitments grew from $1 billion to $13 billion. His war on poverty addressed issues in developing countries such as uneven income distribution, land and tenancy reform, productivity of small farmers, rural development, education, and urban poverty. Collapse...



• Winston Hugh Njongonkulu Ndungane (1941- ): Archbishop of Cape Town
  Winston Hugh Njongonkulu was born in South Africa in 1941. He went to college at the University of Cape Town and became involved in anti-Pass Law Demonstrations. Read More.... Subsequently, he was arrested while protesting the apartheid law. His three year sentence as a political prisoner was served on Robben Island. While there he decided to enter the priesthood. He obtained his Bachelor of Divinity, Honours degree, and Master of Theology degree in Christian Ethics at King’s College. In 1974 Njongonkulu was ordained as an Anglican priest. He began his religious career as a principal of St. Bede’s Theological College in Umtata and eventually became the Archbishop of Cape Town. As Archbishop he wrote numerous essays and book contributions about poverty. His most famous work, A World with a Human Face: a Voice from Africa (2003), included an autobiography and a record of some of his speeches. His largest contributions to poverty alleviation were through advocating the abolishment of developing world debt, helping the Millenium Development Goals, and advertising related anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns. Collapse...



• Jeffrey Sachs: Economist, Director of UN Millennium Project, Director Columbia Earth Institute, 2002-?
  Jeffery Sachs work as an economic advisor has had a powerful effect on economic status of the world. Sachs received his PhD from Harvard followed by a law degree from Simon Fraser University in the early 1980s. Read More.... Subsequently, he taught at Harvard and Columbia University while accumulating several more titles including Director of The Earth Institute. Sachs’ economic research has focused on new links of health and development, globalization, economic development and growth, international financial markets, macroeconomic policies in developing and developed countries, etc. He has advised the Millennium Health Goals, United Nations, the National Bureau of Economic Research, IMF, the World Bank, OECD, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Development Programme. Sachs also has counseled several governments around the world including Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and even Africa. His international employment also has included working toward poverty reduction, debt cancellations, and disease control in all countries. Sachs’ work has proposed “shock therapy” as a solution to the detrimental economic situations in Eastern Europe. His thinking has led to an entirely new field of economics called “clinical economics”. Collapse...



• Amartya Sen (1933- ): Harvard Professor of Economics
  Amartya Sen’s ideas sparked the innovation of some of the greatest tools for poverty alleviation to date. Sen was born in Santiniketan, West Bengal. Read More.... His education began in India as an undergraduate at Viswa-Bharati University, continued at Presidency College, Kolkata, and Delhi School of Economics, and culminated with his PhD from Trinity College in Cambridge in 1959. Subsequently, he taught economics at the University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, Delhi, Oxford, London School of Economics, Harvard, and Trinity College. While teaching, Sen wrote his most famous volume, Poverty and Famines: an Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, which discussed the causes of famine. Sen stated his belief that famine did not occur from lack food, but from improper distribution of the food. He followed this book with an article, “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing”, published in the NY Review of Books. Here he examined the effects of inequality between men and women especially those in developing countries. Sen’s philosophical ideologies led to the development of his “social choice theory” and his “capability concept”. The “social choice theory” explained that all voting rules conflicted with some simple democratic norm. The “capability concept” argued that the government should compare the definitive capabilities of the people and the validity of the citizen “rights”. He asked if a right is earned or whether it is simply given without returns. All of his works remained very controversial when he presented them. However, these revolutionary ideas helped to re-prioritize the policies of a large percentage of economists, development workers, and the United Nations. For his groundbreaking work, Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998.
  
  Amartya Sen currently teaches at Harvard. Collapse...



• James D. Wolfensohn (1933- ): former World Bank President
  A native Australian, James D. Wolfensohn, is a naturalized United States citizen. He completed his law education in Sydney and received an MBA from Harvard. Read More.... Before becoming president of the World Bank, Wolfensohn’s career revolved around international investment banking. He actively advised major U.S. and international corporations while helping to aid developing nations. Wolfensohn assumed presidency of the World Bank in 1995. One of his most dedicated objectives as president has been to build a foundation to assuage world poverty. He began a comprehensive debt reduction program known as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) for the third world countries. Wolfensohn followed this with the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) which is an approach by the World Bank that focuses on creating strong partnerships with the developing country to reduce poverty. The CDF catalyzes the World Bank’s Strategic Compact which is a major reform program improving the bank’s effectiveness in fighting poverty and responding to global economic changes. Currently, the CDF is active in thirteen countries. Collapse...



• Paul Wolfowitz (1943- ): current World Bank President
  aul Wolfowitz was born in 1943 and grew up in Ithaca, New York. He graduated from Cornell University and received a Ph.D. in politics from University of Chicago. Read More.... Wolfowitz taught at Yale University before beginning his political career. He has served in the State Department in several roles including Director of Policy Planning in the U.S. Defense Department, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, and Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Administration of George W. Bush. President Bush nominated Wolfowitz to be President of the World Bank in January 2005. His nomination and confirmation has been controversial due to his philosophy of neo-conservatism and his support of the 2003 Iraq War. Wolfowitz’s term as president began June 1, 2005. Currently, he has made only small changes as he develops his agenda for the World Bank and its current role in poverty alleviation. Collapse...



• Muhammad Yunus (1940- ): 'inventor' of microcredit, founder of Grameen Bank
  Muhammad Yunus lived in Chittagong, Bangladesh throughout his early life and education. He studied at the Chittagong Collegiate School and later at Chittagong College. Read More.... Yunus furthered his economic studies at Vanderbilt University and received his Ph.D. in 1969. He then returned to Chittagong as a professor of economics. Yunus expanded his field to business studies in 1974 during the Bangladesh famine. During this time period, he realized that insignificant loans could make a major significance in the survival rate of a poor person. Yunus’ first loan was $27 from his own pocket to women near Chittagong who were trying to make a living selling bamboo furniture. The loan allowed the women to purchase the bamboo and make a solid profit. Subsequently, Yunus began to give loans continuously to the poor in Bangladesh. He founded Grameen Bank, a microfinance institution, in 1976. Grameen Bank has grown vastly and has given over $3 billion in loans to around 2.4 million people. This loan process now is known as microcredit, and Grameen Bank has become a model to several other microcredit projects throughout the world. Collapse...

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Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance: 'Engaging Trade Institutions: Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane speaks at the WTO Public Symposium' UNICEF: James P. Grant Biography
United Nations Secretary General: Biography
U.S. Department of State: James D. Wolfensohn
Wikipedia: Bono
Wikipedia: Bill Gates
Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs
Wikipedia: Amartya Sen
Wikipedia: Paul Wolfowitz
Wikipedia: Muhammad Yunus
World Bank Archives: Robert Strange McNamara

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