One of the villages in the project is in Kenya. It is called Sauri. A company agreed to provide 360,000 bed nets. Jeffrey Sachs made this partnership seem so easy so it makes me wonder why it seems we never see, actually see, all this aid the U.S. supposedly sends? If Jeffrey Sachs can scrounge up 360,000 bed nets, what could one of the most powerful nations do?
A major challenge is health. This is for obvious reasons: poor water conditions, if any, poor nutrition, if any. Sachs mentioned the basic intervention of a mid-day meal. He said there are numerous of studies that claim learning is imposible when someone is hungry. It hinders their performance. So imagine a child who gets no meal that day.
They have managed to get computer labs in the villages and working on making all villages connected to the internet. Amazing. A village can have no running water but can have cell phone service and internet. That seems backwards doesn't it?
Phones have helped improve the lives of villagers. They can call for information on directions and even call a relative. Villagers can find locations of water, markets, and villages more easily.
The basic outline of the project is based on investment. Investment in: agriculture, health, education, infrastructure. There is low productivity when there is low investment. So there is no income, much less a surplus of income.
Most importantly to making this project succeed is donors coming through on their commitment to aid. Donors got halfway but haven't fully delievered and things are looking shakey as we enter these rough economic times.
So, the Millennium Project is starting to look toward the second 5yr plan which consists of institutionalizing, or commercializing the project. Making a path to commercial agriculture. Higher energy prices have required more costs than expected and also because of the depreciation of the dollar. In agriculture, the goal is to help farmers grow more food and prevent soil depletion.
They still haven't solved the water problem but are currently looking into figuring out how to get piping into villages. Yet, every year 2 or 3 villages have a drought which slows things down tremendously.
In matters of Health, they want to have no charges for health services. Why? Becaues if you charce 10 cents, you lose a quarter of the community. When you charge 25 cents, you loose half of the community. You cannot afford to lose those people.
In education, build schools where there are none, hire teachers, and offer mid-day feeding programs. When there is a mid-day feeding program there is a huge jump in school attendance. When schools are in safe areas for girls to walk to and that provide heigenic facilities, parents will send their kids.
Infrastructure: safe water for household use. Litrines that protects the water source. Roads made better. Electricty. Infrastructure is harder because it requires more time and planning.
2nd phase:
Agriculture: diversification of crops by nurseries and multiplying seed. Irrigation which costs lots of money but requires up-front capital. Laslty, a credit system-- a way to insure repayment.
Health: elaborated health system. Ambulances, emergency rooms, training, local hospital, cell phones for health workers. There are hardly any nurses and commonly no doctors.
Education: electricity in schools, computers, illumination.
Infrastructure: BIG TICKET ITEM. Electricity grid, solar panel fields, piped water, roads.
Finally, the point in all of this is to make it all sustainable. They want this second phase to be done commercially and not based on grants. For instance, selling increased value-added crops on merket if the agriculture improves. Start poultry farming, a dairy industry.
At the moment, considering the economy, funding is being offered from countries such as the Middle East and China.
The idea behind this was to demonstrate and start the learning process for solutions at the local level and to search for how to break poverty trap. To document a way out of the poverty trap that can be scaled up.
Overall, health has scaled up, but no scaling up in agriculture. The host governments love the project and want to scale up to a national level. For example, Mali want to scale up the plan. This country may be the first to have national Millennium goals. This detailed plan would reach 166 villages. Next could be Rwanda and a district in Kenya.
There are only 7 years left though, which means time is running out. Unfortunately, that is not a lot of time. Especially when there are set backs, for example when Bush cancelled funding to Marie Stopes International, a Aids programme for African refugees. Jeffrey Sachs is adament for a new administration that will bring new hope to this project and more support. Let's hope he is right.. (p.s. I'm pretty sure he is referring to Obama as that new hope ;)...)
- A.
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