Analysis of the Millenium Villages Project

One of the largest problems with Sachs's project is the lack of credibility based off what I gathered in The Idealist, the MVP reports and other articles. I understand that Nina Munk never lived in the Millennium Villages for any extended period of time; a few times a year in the villages of Dertu and Ruhiira for two or three days at a time. There is no making up, however, of some of the serious problems that those two villages faced versus what was actually written on the Millennium Villages annual reports, some of which I read my self. According to an article from Foreign Policy magazine titled Does it Take a Village, Jeffrey Sachs never put in place a system of ongoing monitoring and assessment of the villages or a more accurate way of evaluating the villages progress compared to the progress of the rest of the surrounding rural communities. Therefore making it hard to tell whether the improvements seen in the villages were in fact a result of the project or because of the country's improvements (Starobin). Or to even figure out the source of those problems in the villages and find lasting solutions. While covering up mistakes in order to show progress to donors, the information in the reports was inconsistent with what actually happened on the ground. An example within the MVP January1 – December 31, 2008 annual report on the introduction of a universal credit system in Sauri, the report stated that the system proved 'significant.' However, according to Nina Munk, of the ten thousand farmers in Sauri that received these universal access credit loans, around two-thirds of them defaulted. The 2008 report also mentioned the success of the school in Dertu, but in reality Nina Munk reported that Dertu's school dormitory building wa...

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Sachs, Jeffrey D. "The End of Poverty." Time. Time Inc., 06 Mar. 2005. Web. 08 June 2014.

Sachs, Jeffrey D. "Why Bill Gates Gets It Wrong." Project Syndicate. N.p., 23 May 2014. Web. 10 June 2014. .

The Millennium Villages Project: Annual Report January 1-December 31, 2008. Rep. n.d. Millennium Villages. Earth Institute Columbia University and Millenium Promise, 13 July 2009. Web. 11 June 2014.

Starobin, Paul. "Does It Take a Village?" Foreign Policy. N.p., 24 June 2013. Web. 10 June 2014. .

Zijimla, Anouk. "Top 10 Myths About Africa." Africa Travel. Goafrica, n.d. Web. 10 June 2014.

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