Governments in developing countries need to spend more money on essential public services if they are to have a serious impact on poverty. Take the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets for halving extreme poverty, providing universal primary education, halting the spread of HIV and AIDS and much more by 2015. Ambitious, yes, but achievable. To meet many of the MDGs, governments will need to hire more public sector employees, from teachers and doctors to agricultural extension workers. For example, it is estimated that 18 million new teachers will be needed between 2004 and 2015 to achieve universal primary education. As for healthcare, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there is a global shortage of .
