Jeffrey Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York, USA. Sachs is Quetelet professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, special adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the founder and co-president of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. From 2002 to 2006, he was director of the UN Millennium Project and the Millennium Development Goals, eight internationally sanctioned objectives to reduce extreme poverty, hunger, and disease by the year 2015. He has authored numerous books, including The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (Penguin, 2005) and Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (Penguin, 2008).