Response to The Idealist

A recent book, The Idealist by Nina Munk, offers a misleading and out-of-date
perspective on the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) and the work of Professor Jeffrey
Sachs in fighting extreme poverty. Unfortunately, the author has based her conclusions
on just two out of twelve sites a mere tenth of the population of the overall project
and reporting on the early years of a ten-year project. Her visits to the villages amounted
to an average of only 1 week per year.
Munks reporting is based on anecdotes that are often in complete contrast to what was
actually going in the few villages she did manage to see. Her account is devoid of
quantitative data. The project itself will be fully and scientifically evaluated in 2015, in
its final year.
Munks anecdotal account misses the true story of Africas progress in the fight against
poverty. This is disappointing, since the progress that much of Africa is now making in
fighting extreme poverty is a major turnaround from the crisis and despair before the year
2000, when the Millennium Development Goals were adopted.
Professor Sachs is the lead proponent of the view that extreme poverty is an anachronism
and can be defeated by our generation, a view he described at length in The End of
Poverty (2005). The Millennium Village Project, based on Prof Sachs vision and the
ground-breaking work of more than two hundred development experts in the United
Nations Millennium Project (2002-2006), sides with tens of thousands of African
development experts across the continent who are working with science, technology,
community engagement, and moral commitment, to end Africas ancient scourges of
extreme poverty, hunger, and avoidable disease.
Rigorous science-based approaches and creative implementation are at the heart of the
Millennium Village Project. These approaches have been developed by many worldleading experts, including many of Africas leading development specialists, in a variety
of fields including public health, environment, agriculture, civil engineering, information
technology, and education. The targeted interventions include malaria control, scaled-up
AIDS treatment, the deployment of community health workers, the scale-up of support
for smallholder farmers, and the development of new IT tools for development programs
and management. The Millennium Villages have been an important testing and proving
ground for many approaches now being implemented at continental scale
(http://www.millenniumvillages.org/field-notes/tag/voices-from-africa).
The dramatic reduction of malaria deaths now underway in Africa, for example, drew
support and encouragement from early results in the Millennium Villages. Another
example of recent progress based on the Millennium Villages experience is the massive
scale up of community health workers now underway in many countries throughout
Africa (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=encDhLJO-GU). The Millennium Villages
have been an important platform for designing a cutting-edge, information-technologybased, community health care system. As seen in the above video, community health

workers are now able to visit households supported by a range of new and powerful
technologies: smartphones running innovative software (CommCare); high-quality Rapid
Diagnostic Tests for malaria; and improved decision-support systems for monitoring
pregnant women and children under five.
Fueled by this record of economic and social accomplishments, and the support that the
project has thereby engendered among host governments, the Millennium Villages
Project continues to expand (http://millenniumvillages.org/field-notes/a-new-era-ofpoverty-reduction-in-africa-a-perspective-from-the-millennium-villages/). Just recently,
eight African national governments requested and received over $100 million in
financing from the Islamic Development Bank to build or scale programs advised by the
MVP. [http://www.millenniumvillages.org/press-releases/islamic-development-bankand-earth-institute-partner-to-meet-millennium-development-goals-in-rural-africa]. In
the lead-up to securing the IsDB funds, ministers and parliamentarians visited the
Millennium Villages repeatedly in Senegal, Mali, and Uganda to validate the progress
and the innovations already being made at those sites. These governments decided to
borrow from the IsDB precisely because they saw the impact of the MVP and want to
expand it. The ongoing and detailed process of African governments securing the IsDB
financing was conveyed to Ms Munk, but the loans were completed after she had finished
her reporting, and she has not updated her descriptions of the project.
In addition to the original 10 countries in the project, another 13 countries are now
undertaking their own Millennium Villages projects or projects that are closely modeled
on the MVP and with MVP advice involved. This means that in total today across Africa,
23 countries have either started or will soon be starting projects based on the Millennium
Village model. (http://www.millenniumvillages.org/field-notes/millennium-villageprograms-now-in-more-than-20-countries). Many other countries are eager to join the
project.
As progress is being made, Professor Sachs and the entire MVP team are deeply honored
and excited to be a part of Africas progress. Yes, there are many ups and downs, and one
learns from both the ups and downs. With great African leadership, solid science and
creative engineering, lots of perseverance, and widespread support for these grassroots
efforts within Africas communities, great gains are possible and are indeed being made.
The details of these gains, and their comparison with progress in non-MV sites, will be
part of the thorough evaluation of 2015.
To learn the real and ongoing story of Africas recent successes in fighting poverty,
follow the writings of the development leaders throughout the continent. Some recent
highlights are here: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ensuring-the-successof-the-un-s-sustainable-development-goals-by-jeffrey-d--sachs and
here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belay-begashaw/africa-poverty_b_3831564.html
as well as the dynamic work of the Millennium Villages Project and its continuing
expansion around Africa (millenniumvillages.org).