The Millennium Villages Project – an introduction

The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was founded with the goal of helping impoverished communities in rural Africa achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) formulated and agreed on by all member countries of the United Nations. The MVP is active at 14 sites in 10 African countries. Each site is in a major agro-ecological zone that, together, represent the farming systems used by 90% of the agricultural population and 93% of the agricultural land area in sub-Saharan Africa. The project operates in 80 villages and, to date, has reached nearly 400,000 people.

The challenge is to halve poverty by the year 2015. The objectives of the MVP are closely linked to the Millennium Development Goals:

			Goal 1: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
			Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
			Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
			Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
			Goal 5: Improve maternal health
			Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
			Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
			Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

With the help of new advances in science and technology, project staff works with rural communities to develop and implement sustainable, community-led action plans that are tailored to the villages’ specific needs and designed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Simple solutions like providing high-yielding seed varieties, fertilizers, medicines, drinking wells and materials to build classrooms and clinics are effectively combating extreme poverty and nourishing communities into a new age of health and opportunity. Improved science and technology such as agro-forestry, insecticide-treated bed nets, antiretroviral drugs, remote sensing, geographic information systems and Internet and mobile phone connectivity enhances this process. Over a five-year period, community committees and local governments are building the capacity to continue these initiatives and develop a solid foundation for sustainable growth.

The Novartis Foundation and MVP

In 2007 the Novartis Foundation started financing one of the Millennium Villages in Tanzania, the Ilolangulu Village. For a five-year-period the Novartis Foundation will invest in the village’s transition from subsistence farming to self-sustaining commercial activity.

As three out of eight MDGs are health-related, the Novartis Foundation agreed in 2007 to also support the Millennium Villages Project in health-related research. In addition, the Novartis Foundation donates the anti-malarial Coartem^® to all Millennium Villages.

Ilolangulu Millennium Village Project

The Ilolangulu Village is one of six Millennium Villages in the Mbola cluster in Tanzania. Inadequate water supply, extreme hunger, failed crops and a high prevalence of malaria represented the early challenges at the beginning of the project.

After two years, a positive outcome can be seen:

• Crop diversification and the use of fertilizers and hybrid seeds have increased maize yields from 1.5 tons/hectare in 2007 to close to 5 tons/hectare in 2009
• A new clinic constructed by MVP in the Mbola cluster, better health services and the distribution of more than 20,000 treated bed nets improved the overall health of the population.
• Teacher trainings, new textbooks as well as school meal coverage for more than 7,000 children have improved the education in the cluster
• New infrastructure – such as water and sanitation systems, but also mobile phone towers – has been constructed.