Dear Friend,

Ten years ago, the world's leaders got together at the start of the new millennium and said, "Let's do something right to break the back of extreme poverty, hunger and pandemic disease." They set eight Millennium Development Goals, to be achieved by 2015. This September, they are coming together again in New York to discuss where we are and how to accelerate progress.

It's been a thrill to me as director of the Earth Institute and as special advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Earth Institute scientists and students are playing an absolutely phenomenal, central role in thinking through the creative ideas, new approaches, new technologies and new systems we need to make the Millennium Development Goals more achievable.

We are showing through demonstration projects in Africa and around the world that the MDGs can be met.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute