The debates
Shock therapy in Russia
Russia’s economic struggles after rapid reform brought heavy criticism of his approach. Mikhail Gorbachev said shock therapy was applied without preparation. Joseph Stiglitz said it created conditions for “crony capitalism”. Kori Schake faulted him in 2018 for not examining his own role in rapid privatisation.
He says he advised Russia from December 1991 to January 1994 and had little influence. The large Western aid he called for never came. He says he never backed loans-for-shares or voucher giveaways of oil and gas. He called those deals “abominable missteps”.
PBS Commanding Heights: Shock therapy · Times Higher Education (29 November 2018) · Jeffrey Sachs: What I did in Russia (2012) · IMF Finance & Development: A Project in Every Port (December 2012)
Did the Millennium Villages work?
In 2012 the project’s authors withdrew a Lancet claim that child deaths fell three times faster in its villages. Nina Munk’s 2013 book The Idealist judged the project a failure on the ground. A DFID-funded evaluation in Ghana found gains in health and schooling but no significant overall fall in poverty or hunger.
The authors said their comparison with matched sites still stood. In 2018 he wrote that the evaluation reinforced the core message of the UN Millennium Project. He argued modest funding could meet bold goals.
News-Medical: Millennium Village Project correction (18 May 2012) · The Globe and Mail: How Jeffrey Sachs failed to save Africa · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · IDS: Millennium Villages impact evaluation (18 September 2018) · Sachs: Lessons from the Millennium Villages Project (2018)
COVID origins and the Lancet Commission
He disbanded the Commission’s origins task force in September 2021. In 2022 he said he was “pretty convinced” the virus came from US lab biotechnology. Scientists including Angela Rasmussen and David Robertson attacked the 2022 report. Commissioner Peter Hotez said he pushed to drop mention of US labs as a distraction.
He said he oversaw that part of the work and that every commissioner signed off on the final text. He holds that a lab release and natural spillover both remain possible. He says the task force hid conflicts of interest.
Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · The Telegraph via Yahoo News (14 September 2022) · New York Magazine (3 March 2023)
Ukraine, Russia and NATO
In March 2023 more than 300 economists, many Ukrainian, signed an open letter accusing him of spreading Kremlin narratives. They said he ignored Ukrainian agency and blamed NATO for the war. Signatory Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia said he was repeating Russian propaganda.
He argues that NATO enlargement and US policy in Ukraine since 2014 provoked the war. He calls for a negotiated peace that ends the push to bring Ukraine into NATO. In 2022 he co-signed an open letter calling for a ceasefire.
Open letter to Jeffrey Sachs on the Russia-Ukraine war (20 March 2023) · Fox News (10 April 2023) · Wikipedia: Jeffrey Sachs · Jeffrey Sachs: The US provoked the war in Ukraine (1 June 2023)
China and Xinjiang
Rights groups questioned Columbia after a 2021 interview on the Uyghurs. Dissident lawyer Teng Biao accused him of whataboutism after he answered questions on China by citing US abuses. In 2025 the East Turkistan Government in Exile called him deeply biased.
With legal scholar William Schabas he wrote that the US had offered no proof of genocide. They asked Washington to withdraw the charge and to back a UN-based investigation. He says rivalry with China is driven by economic competition.
Axios (23 February 2021) · National Review (April 2021) · The Tribune / ANI (24 February 2025) · Project Syndicate (20 April 2021)
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