Millennium Villages Project
Encyclopedia
The Millennium Villages Project is a project of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
, the United Nations Development Programme
, and Millennium Promise
.
It is an approach to ending extreme poverty
and meeting the Millennium Development Goals
--eight globally endorsed targets that address the problems of poverty, health, gender equality, and disease. Initiating a paradigm shift, the Millennium Villages promote an integrated approach to rural development, using evidence-based technologies and strategies in each sector, with sufficient investment over a sufficient period of time. This approach also combines a critical cost-sharing and planning partnership with local and national governments, and rural, African communities, while focusing on capacity building and community empowerment. By improving access to clean water, sanitation and other essential infrastructure, education, food production, basic health care, and environmental sustainability, Millennium Villages ensures that communities living in extreme poverty have a real, sustainable opportunity to lift themselves out of the poverty trap
.
Millennium Villages are divided into different types. There are the original core villages which include different agroforestry zones covering 13 sites in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including: Sauri and Dertu, Kenya
; Koraro, Ethiopia
, Mbola
Tanzania
, Ruhiira, Uganda
, Mayange, Rwanda
, Mwandama, Malawi
, Pampaida and Ikaram, Nigeria
, Potou, Senegal
, Tiby and Toya, Mali
, and Bonsaaso, Ghana
.
There are additional Millennium Villages which are following the Millennium Village program but which are not directly supported through the Earth Institute at Columbia University
. These additional villages are located in Liberia, Cambodia, Jordan, Mozambique, Haiti, Cameroon and Benin.
(through its Human Security Trust Fund) and private philanthropic donors (through the Earth Institute at Columbia University) provided the financing the first set of Millennium Villages, reaching some 60,000 people.
A core aspect of the Millennium Villages is that the poverty-ending investments in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure can be financed by donors at an incremental cost of just $50 per villager per year—$250,000 per village per year. The overhead costs of managing the project in each village is $50,000 per year.
On a per-person basis, the total village cost of $110 per person includes:
Critically, the external financing needs of $70 per capita are in line with the financial commitments made by the leaders of industrialized countries at the 2005 Summit in Gleneagles. G8 countries promised to raise their development assistance to Africa to the equivalent of $70 per capita by 2010.
In a review of the project undertaken by the Overseas Development Institute
(ODI) crop yield increases of 85-350% were recorded as well as reductions in malaria incidence of over 50%. While agricultural surpluses are able to be channelled into school meals programmes, helping to increase enrolment, improvements in health status are reported to increase labour productivity.
According to ODI policy conclusions, in order for wider scale, more sustainable implementation to be achieved, village projects need to identify shared goals, seeking evidence-based, cost-effective interventions by governments and implementing agencies. They will also need to focus on addressing upstream investments such as training facilities for front-line staff.
village of the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC), the Millennium Villages obtain only similar achievements at far greater expenses. This is a result of the Millennium Villages' use of Artificial fertilizers and hybrids
seeds (often of plants such as corn; which are not indigenous
to the area). SFHC, on the other hand, uses diverse legume crops to improve soil health: "The SFHC research project attempts to improve child nutritional status, household food security and soil fertility through use of different legume options which can improve the quality and quantity of food available within the household as well as provide organic inputs to improve soil fertility." According to Rachel Bezner Kerr, use of fertilizers and genetically modified seeds leads to dependence of the farmers on expensive products being marketed by large industrial companies. By contrast, the use of crop diversity to improve soil health is a low cost, and thus far more sustainable, solution.
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, the United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
, and Millennium Promise
Millennium Promise
Millennium Promise, or The Millennium Promise Alliance, Inc., is a non-profit organization incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware, dedicated to ending extreme poverty within our lifetime...
.
It is an approach to ending extreme poverty
Extreme poverty
Extreme poverty, as defined in 1996 by Joseph Wresinski, the founder of ATD Fourth World, is:"The lack of basic security connotes the absence of one or more factors enabling individuals and families to assume basic responsibilities and to enjoy fundamental rights. The situation may become...
and meeting the Millennium Development Goals
Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015...
--eight globally endorsed targets that address the problems of poverty, health, gender equality, and disease. Initiating a paradigm shift, the Millennium Villages promote an integrated approach to rural development, using evidence-based technologies and strategies in each sector, with sufficient investment over a sufficient period of time. This approach also combines a critical cost-sharing and planning partnership with local and national governments, and rural, African communities, while focusing on capacity building and community empowerment. By improving access to clean water, sanitation and other essential infrastructure, education, food production, basic health care, and environmental sustainability, Millennium Villages ensures that communities living in extreme poverty have a real, sustainable opportunity to lift themselves out of the poverty trap
Poverty trap
A poverty trap is "any self-reinforcing mechanism which causes poverty to persist." If it persists from generation to generation, the trap begins to reinforce itself if steps are not taken to break the cycle.-Developing world:...
.
Millennium Villages are divided into different types. There are the original core villages which include different agroforestry zones covering 13 sites in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including: Sauri and Dertu, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
; Koraro, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Mbola
Mbola, Tanzania
Mbola is a cluster of Millennium Village in the Uyui district of Tanzania, home to about 30,000 people as of 2011....
Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
, Ruhiira, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, Mayange, Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
, Mwandama, Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
, Pampaida and Ikaram, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Potou, Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, Tiby and Toya, Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, and Bonsaaso, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
.
There are additional Millennium Villages which are following the Millennium Village program but which are not directly supported through the Earth Institute at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. These additional villages are located in Liberia, Cambodia, Jordan, Mozambique, Haiti, Cameroon and Benin.
Guiding Principles
- Promote sustainable, scalable, community-led progress toward the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals through the use of scientifically validated interventions—one village at a time
- Ensure African ownership of the Millennium Development Goals, and work in partnership with African governments and regional groups
- Increase capacity and community empowerment in Africa through training and knowledge sharing with local African governments, NGOs, and village communities.
- Partner with the public and private sectors, innovative NGOs, universities and leading experts, and the international donor community throughout Africa and the world to continually improve and coordinate development strategies.
- Transform rural sub-subsistence farming economies into small-scale enterprise development economies and promote diversified entrepreneurs
Financing
The Government of JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
(through its Human Security Trust Fund) and private philanthropic donors (through the Earth Institute at Columbia University) provided the financing the first set of Millennium Villages, reaching some 60,000 people.
A core aspect of the Millennium Villages is that the poverty-ending investments in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure can be financed by donors at an incremental cost of just $50 per villager per year—$250,000 per village per year. The overhead costs of managing the project in each village is $50,000 per year.
On a per-person basis, the total village cost of $110 per person includes:
- $50 Donor funding through the Millennium Village program
- $30 Local and national governments (this is most likely to include funding for interventions themselves and the provision of agricultural and health extension workers in the villages)
- $20 Partner organizations (e.g., existing programs supported by official bilateral donors) and in-kind corporate giving (for example, Sumitomo ChemicalSumitomo ChemicalSumitomo Chemical is a Japanese company. It's a member of the Sumitomo group and is listed on the Nikkei 225. The company is one of Japan's major chemical companies and was founded in 1913.-Company Milestones:...
Corporation recently agreed to donate insecticide-treated bednets for the Millennium Villages) - $10 Village members, typically through in-kind contributions of their time and expertise
Critically, the external financing needs of $70 per capita are in line with the financial commitments made by the leaders of industrialized countries at the 2005 Summit in Gleneagles. G8 countries promised to raise their development assistance to Africa to the equivalent of $70 per capita by 2010.
Prospects for increasing village-based interventions
Launched on 1 June 2006, the Millennium Villages Project was initially planned as a five-year project, a second phase has now been planned for 2011-2015.In a review of the project undertaken by the Overseas Development Institute
Overseas Development Institute
The Overseas Development Institute is one of the leading independent think tanks on international development and humanitarian issues. Based in London, its mission is "to inspire and inform policy and practice which lead to the reduction of poverty, the alleviation of suffering and the achievement...
(ODI) crop yield increases of 85-350% were recorded as well as reductions in malaria incidence of over 50%. While agricultural surpluses are able to be channelled into school meals programmes, helping to increase enrolment, improvements in health status are reported to increase labour productivity.
According to ODI policy conclusions, in order for wider scale, more sustainable implementation to be achieved, village projects need to identify shared goals, seeking evidence-based, cost-effective interventions by governments and implementing agencies. They will also need to focus on addressing upstream investments such as training facilities for front-line staff.
Critics
When compared to the EkwendeniEkwendeni
Ekwendeni is a town in the Northern Region of Malawi. It lies about from Mzuzu, in the Mzimba district.Ekwendeni was started by Scottish missionaries. It has one of the oldest churches in Malawi belonging to the Malawi equivalent of the Church of Scotland. The hospital began in the 1890s as a...
village of the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC), the Millennium Villages obtain only similar achievements at far greater expenses. This is a result of the Millennium Villages' use of Artificial fertilizers and hybrids
Plant breeding
Plant breeding is the art and science of changing the genetics of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. Plant breeding can be accomplished through many different techniques ranging from simply selecting plants with desirable characteristics for propagation, to more complex molecular...
seeds (often of plants such as corn; which are not indigenous
Tropical agriculture
Worldwide more human beings gain their livelihood from agriculture than any other endeavor; the majority are self-employed subsistence farmers living in the tropics...
to the area). SFHC, on the other hand, uses diverse legume crops to improve soil health: "The SFHC research project attempts to improve child nutritional status, household food security and soil fertility through use of different legume options which can improve the quality and quantity of food available within the household as well as provide organic inputs to improve soil fertility." According to Rachel Bezner Kerr, use of fertilizers and genetically modified seeds leads to dependence of the farmers on expensive products being marketed by large industrial companies. By contrast, the use of crop diversity to improve soil health is a low cost, and thus far more sustainable, solution.
External links
- Official Website
- Official UN Website
- Official Columbia University Website
- Review of the Millennium Villages Project carried out by the Overseas Development InstituteOverseas Development InstituteThe Overseas Development Institute is one of the leading independent think tanks on international development and humanitarian issues. Based in London, its mission is "to inspire and inform policy and practice which lead to the reduction of poverty, the alleviation of suffering and the achievement...
(ODI), 2008