Jeffrey Sachs, U.N. special adviser to Secretary General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Project, has just returned from Africa and says the continent is trapped in poverty. Not by any fault of its own but by geography, climate, disease and isolation.

Sachs says it will take a flood of foreign aid, a “big push,” to bring the continent into the first world. The response to the tsunami, although generous, is not the kind of push Sachs is talking about. Such aid, he says, needs to flow before disasters strike so poor countries can avert predictable risks and better respond to unpredictable ones.

Hear a conversation with Jeffrey Sachs about his new action plan to fight poverty and save the planet.

Guests:

Jeffrey Sachs, U.N. special adviser to Secretary General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Project, an initiative to meet development goals defined by world leaders in 2000, including eliminating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. He is also director of the Columbia University Earth Institute, a $90 million think tank to help the poor while preserving the planet.