Jeffrey Sachs in Banja Luka: PM Meeting, Honorary Degree

American economist Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University, arrives in Banja Luka on Sunday, September 27, where he will meet Republika Srpska Prime Minister Sava Minic and the entity’s top officials at the seat of the Government. The Republika Srpska Government’s public relations bureau said the meeting will take place in the Government building, without offering further details on what will be discussed or which other officials will attend.

The following day, Monday, September 28, the University of Banja Luka will award Sachs an honorary doctorate. That same day he will give a lecture at the university’s Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, in front of students and faculty. This is the first announcement of his visit to Republika Srpska that we are reporting on, and the published program so far covers only these two days: the meeting at the Government and the ceremony at the university.

Jeffrey Sachs is not an unfamiliar name in Serbian public life even outside economic circles. In recent years he has regularly taken part in debates over the West’s relations with Russia and China and over the war in Ukraine, and has repeatedly criticized NATO’s eastward expansion in public. In his public appearances he has also spoken about the 1999 bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which he has described as part of a broader Western policy toward the Balkans during the 1990s.

Sachs began his academic career at Harvard University, where he earned his doctorate and then taught for more than two decades before moving to Columbia University in New York. Over the course of his career he has advised numerous governments as well as international organizations, including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and has served as a special adviser to UN secretaries general. He is the author of several books and numerous papers on the global economy, development and international relations, subjects that, according to the announcement, also feature in his upcoming lecture in Banja Luka.

Awarding an honorary doctorate to one of the world’s most cited economists gives the University of Banja Luka a level of visibility that Republika Srpska institutions rarely receive from foreign academics of this standing. Neither RTRS nor Politika, which both carried the bureau’s announcement, say whether Sachs will address the current political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina during his stay or limit himself to topics from his academic work.

The list of officials who will sit at the table on Sunday, as well as the content of Monday’s lecture, has not yet been published. Republika Srpska and the University of Banja Luka have presented the visit as a protocol event, with no indication that it will be followed by a separate statement after the meeting.