Sir, Martin Wolf ("The right way to expand aid is with care and caution", January 19) is right to argue that governments (and people) in Africa's poorest economies need incentives if they are to take on the difficult politics of transforming their societies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. But he misses a fundamental point of the Millennium Project report: a reasonable prospect of adequate support from the donor community - adequate not only in size but in predictability and duration - in itself constitutes such an incentive.
The Millennium Project taskforce on education, for example, calls on leaders of the world's poorest countries to take such politically difficult steps as transferring to parents and communities control over school budgets.
In countries such as Ethiopia, Ghana and Mali, that means depriving local politicians and bureaucrats of patronage spoils and threatening teachers' lifetime tenure - an approach unlikely to be politically sustained if the government cannot in return deliver to its citizens better schooling and an end to primary school fees.
The "global" report under Jeffrey Sachs' leadership, moreover, is clear that the scaled-up investments it urges will work only where governments are competent, honest, and defending not assaulting civil liberties and human rights: in short, themselves creating the right incentives for their own citizens and businesses.
In those "fast track" countries the needs are urgent, the opportunity to improve lives and trigger growth is considerable, and the costs for the rich world of the additional financing is "trivial" (to use Mr Wolf's word). The authors of the report do not assert that Africa will be transformed in a decade; only that it cannot be transformed without some outside help. This is as true for parts of Africa today as it was for Arkansas 50 years ago.
In the case of education, donors committed themselves more than two years ago to back financially a dozen "fast track" countries ready to undertake difficult institutional and other reforms of their education systems.
They have since been convening and discussing and negotiating - and, to some it seems, stalling. It is past time for the donors to stop talking and support governments in Africa ready to take up the challenge of achieving the education and other Millennium Development Goals.
For the rich world to give good leaders of poor countries the incentive and the wherewithal to take up their portion of this global task is a "trivial" risk with a potentially huge return - in better lives and a more secure global community. "Care and caution" should not be an excuse for more stalling.
Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development, Washington, DC 20036, US