Millennium Villages Project

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The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was a demonstration project of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the United Nations Development Programme, and Millennium Promise aimed at proving that its integrated approach to rural development can be used to achieve the Millennium Development Goals—eight globally endorsed targets that address the problems of poverty, health, gender equality, and disease—by 2015.

Even though the website of the Millennium Village Project is still active, the project ended with final evaluation in 2015^[1] because it was initially scaled to progress for a decade from 2005. The project was divided into two phases,^[2] from 2004 to 2010 for the first phase and 2011-2015 for the second phase. In the first phase, the project was focused at the following five stations: agriculture (seed and fertilizer support, farmer training and storage expansion, crop diversification, etc.), health (installation of mosquito nets, vaccine supply and pest control, etc.), education (Construction of schools, installation of water supply, etc.), infrastructure (sanitation, roads, etc.), business development (micro-credit, cooperative training, etc.). The main focus in the second phase of the MVP was to successfully enhance, strengthen, and complete the programs that started in Phase 1.

By improving access to clean water, primary education, basic health care, sanitation, and other science-based interventions such as improved seeds and fertilizer, Millennium Villages aimed to ensure that communities living in extreme poverty have a real, sustainable opportunity to lift themselves out of the poverty trap.^[3]

The first Millennium village was launched in 2005 in Sauri, Kenya. "This is a village that’s going to make history," is how Millennium Villages founder Jeffrey Sachs described Sauri in The Diary of Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, a 2005 MTV documentary. "It’s a village that’s going to end extreme poverty."^[4]

Millennium Villages are divided into different types. There are the original core villages which include different agro-ecological zones covering 14 sites in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including: Sauri and Dertu, Kenya; Koraro, Ethiopia; Mbola, Tanzania; Ruhiira, Uganda; Mayange, Rwanda; Mwandama and Gumulira, Malawi; Pampaida and Ikaram, Nigeria; Potou, Senegal; Tiby and Toya, Mali and Bonsaaso, Ghana.^[5]

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.

The project was originally funded through a combination of World Bank loans and private contributions, including $50 million from George Soros.^[6] Initially designed with a timeline of five years, the project was extended to ten years to allow more time to reach the intended goals. In her 2013 book about the project, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, journalist Nina Munk quotes Sachs saying: "The main thing is to add another block of time to really get the income levels significantly raised."^[7]