NEW YORK A prominent Harvard University professor and activist on Sunday accused the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United States of pursuing policies that have caused the deaths of millions of people around the world.

"People die by the millions in silence because of poverty" and "this is the responsibility of the IMF and the World Bank," he told a gathering at the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of corporate and political leaders.

"We have 25,000 people die every day for identifiable reasons."

He charged that the "IMF and the World Bank have failed," citing economic reform programs imposed on poor countries by the two institutions in exchange for financial support.

But he laid much of the blame for their failure on the United States, which he said wields substantial influence over the fund and the bank and is "the biggest obstacle" to efforts aimed at increasing their assistance to the most impoverished countries, AFP reported.

"We have the means to save millions of people but we do nothing," said Sachs, who is also head of Harvard's Center for International Development.

Also attending the session was French Parliamentary Deputy Dominique Strauss-Khan, who maintained that the United States lagged far behind other industrial countries in the amount of development aid -- as a percentage of gross domestic product -- that it provides.

France devotes about 0.3 percent of its GDP to aid, compared with 0.1 percent made available by the United States, he said.