Many local farmers in the Mbola Millennium Village harvest honey from traditional beehives, but until recently the equipment and techniques used have greatly limited honey production. The Millennium Villages Project has stepped in to assist farmers to modernize and commercialize honey production in an effort to guarantee both sustainable livelihoods and food security in the largely subsistence, agrarian economy.

The practice of cross-generational sex (CGS), has extremely negative impacts on school-age girls in Uganda, increasing their risk of HIV infection and reducing their self-esteem. The service and emotional learning (SEL) initiative in the Ruhiira Millennium Village aims to provide support and education for vulnerable adolescent girls. Above is a photo of girls participating in Eminyeeto, a young women's empowerment program in Ruhiira.

Thanks to an annual eye care initiative launched in 2011 in Ruhiira by the Millennium Villages Project in partnership with the Tommy Hilfiger Foundation, villagers like Mzee Rwebituzi are able to regain their sight and their lives.

The Millennium Villages Project has begun to accelerate its efforts to promote sustainability. Mwandama, Malawi is leading is leading the way by creating rural cooperatives designed to help member farmers transition from subsistence to commercialized agriculture.

With the 1,000-day milestone to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in mind, the Earth Institute's Sustainable Development Seminar gathered professors Jeffrey Sachs, Prabhjot Singh, and Vijay Modi reflect on the progress of the Millennium Villages Project.

Due to a recent resurgence in tuberculosis research focused on drug development, several new antituberculosis drugs are in the pipeline, and the standard of care for tuberculosis might soon change.

This post on education is part of a series from the Millennium Village site of SADA in northern Ghana which was launched in late 2012. Through their own voice, the series explores how the lives of community members are changing over the duration of the project. Please check back with us as they continue to tell their stories.

This post is part of a series from the Millennium Village site of SADA in northern Ghana which was launched in late 2012. Through their own voice, the series explores how the lives of community members are changing over the duration of the project. Please check back with us as they continue to tell their stories.

The Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture visited Sauri Millennium Village in Kenya. In a blog post, they reflect on the their visit and the importance of an integrated approach to sustainable development, which is exemplified by the Millennium Village Project.

"The new books are so beautiful," declared Fatuma, an excited round-cheeked Standard 2 student. "I want to touch them, and read them, and learn about the things they contain."

A new paper published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization has determined that providing rural sub-Saharan Africans a close-to-client health system by paid, full-time community health workers by 2015 would cost $2.6 billion per year, or just $6.86 per person covered by the program.

For mothers and newborn children in the Ruhiira, Uganda Millennium Village, a new operating theatre at the Rwekubo Health Center can mean the difference between life and death.

In part one of a two-part blog series, Dr. Prabhjot Singh explains the origins of the One Million Community Healthcare Workers Campaign and how the campaign will be using crowd-sourced input to inform and drive its activities.

Community Health Workers take advantage of low and high-tech tools to provide a critical link between village residents and the local healthcare clinic.

Community health workers are bringing life-saving care to the most vulnerable in the Millennium Villages throughout rural Africa.

Elizabeth, age 37, talks about her life in northern Ghana in the Builsa District where a new Millennium Village site is just starting up.

Ireene Malengah, a 15-year-old orphan: "It is important for girls to go to school because after finishing school they find good jobs. When I finish school, I want to be a nurse, because I want to assist people in our country."

Improving hygiene and hand-washing habits will be part of a new WASH program in the MVP.

Delphin Muhizi, Senior Business Development Technician, reflecting upon the agricultural progress in Mayange. The current structure of the Cassava Plant, donated by Millennium Promise, has helped this business become one of the most profitable businesses in Mayange. The processing business is now expanding as a result of the success.

Bono and Jeffrey Sachs visit the Millennium Village in northern Ghana earlier this year.

The jewelry trade empowers Ugandan women in the Millennium Village of Ruhiira.

Part of the blog series from MVP summer interns.

Part of a blog series from MVP summer interns.

Part of a blog series from MVP summer interns.

The first in a series of blog posts from MVP interns.

Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye (in light blue) visits the maternity section of the Leona Health Post during a visit to the Millennium Villages of Potou in Senegal on Saturday.

Jeffrey Sachs, Minister Awa Marie Coll-Seck and Amadou Niang open this year's Millennium Villages retreat in Dakar, Senegal.

Palm Fruit Harvesting, Bonsaaso, Ghana

Strong evidence now indicates that circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men by 38-66%. The WHO and UNAIDS currently recommend circumcision be part of a comprehensive program in preventing HIV transmission in areas with high endemic rates of HIV.

A total of 792 households are now farming more than 1,200 hectares of oil palm, making it the second largest source of agricultural income in the Bonsaaso cluster.

Correction of Lancet Paper.

A new paper published in The Lancet reveals a significant drop in mortality recorded among children under the age of five resulting from an integrated approach to rural development

The MVP is intensely focused on raising incomes through expanding business development opportunities which include forming cooperatives and investing in machinery.

Most artisanal or small-scale mining communities—in Ghana and across Africa—have been extracting gold for centuries, long before prices rallied in the last decade.

A central solar electricity system connects multiple households and businesses. Customers buy prepaid scratch cards and send text messages to a payment server.

Katie Holmes visited the Millennium Village of Ruhiira in Uganda. She helped to launch the collection.

Early pregnancy, school fees, family obligations are among the reasons girls don't go beyond primary schooling. Connect to Learn is helping girls get a secondary school education.

In Northern Ghana, roughly 30,000 people will benefit from a new Millennium Villages site.

In Mayange, Rwanda, the Millennium Villages Project helped establish the Abadaiga Cooperative of pig famers for single women.

Sauri was the first Millennium Village established in 2005-2006 in sub-Saharan Africa.

The government of Nigeria is using the billion dollars per annum that it receives in debt relief to take the Millennium Villages project to scale towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Above, young adults in the village of Ikaram receive computer training.

Richard Buchta (left) volunteers from GlaxoSmithKline to help train local health extension workers to start tuberculosis surveillance programs in Koraro, Ethiopia.

Asimwe Enock provides haircuts using electricity from solar panels well into the night after the sun has gone down.

Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs meets with Rokia, a community health worker in the Tiby Millennium Village in Mali. Mobile phones provide the workers with a vital link to a larger health care system. Photo: Millennium Promise

Discussing methods of evaluating the Millennium Villages Project.

Former Kenyan Minister of Health.

The second phase of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was launched on Monday, October 3rd , by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses room of MVP partners.

Nina Sharma, Director of Individual Partnerships (and cycling enthusiast!), shares her perspective from Breckenridge, CO.

Get 'em before they're gone! These shirts are flying off the shelves here in Colorado!

Vail brings new energy, even larger crowds for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge for Millennium Promise.

The UPCC organizing team has gone miles out of their way to promote Millennium Promise at this years race in Colorado. This historic partnership should serve as a model for other pro-level sporting events in the US.

Jessica is the Team Leader for Sauri Millennium Village (Kenya). This is her first trip to the USA and she'll be blogging with us this week on the go from the USA Pro Cycling Challenge for Millennium Promise.

Today we're climbing from 6,000 to nearly 9,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies--hear about how residents of Salida, Colorado are prepping for the race.

We're all set up and ready to go here in Colorado Springs. Kicking off the USA Pro Cycling Challenge for Millennium Promise and hoping to raise a ton of awareness for our work with the Millennium Villages Project in sub-Saharan Africa!

Did you know that one single community health worker can provide care for up to 750 people in rural Africa?

Members of the small community of Uranga, in Western Kenya, don’t have to walk long distances anymore to access healthcare. Now, they can visit St. Elizabeth Onding dispensary, which was inaugurated recently by local officials and the Sauri Millennium Village team.

Reaching education potential in Ruhiira, Uganda

Teams from the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) and several UN bodies met in Nairobi in February to review the progress registered so far in the partnership launched a year ago between UNAIDS and the Project.

With a little more than 700 students, Dertu’s primary school, set in this remote pastoralist village in arid Northern Kenya, was certainly not expecting to be in the news. So the joy and pride were big when a photo of one of its students was featured in a daily newspaper.

‘Before, we were using the bush. Now we have latrines for boys and girls, and the headmaster told us how to use them.’ The 12-year-old boy’s candid explanation is a reminder of the lack of hygiene that still prevails in schools in rural and poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

Nineteen students from Mbola Millennium Village, in Uyui district in Tanzania, have been awarded secondary school scholarships from the Connect To Learn program.

Reducing infection risk in Ruhiira, Uganda

When I arrived to the Bonsaaso Millennium Villages Project (MVP) site, my first impressions regarding the status of healthcare delivery were above expectations: I was pleasantly surprised about the great work that MVP and the Ghana Health Service had carried out in this cluster.

In Mwandama, a remote village in Malawi with no supermarket and limited internet, the community was falling right through the meshes of the consumer grid. But a group of enterprising women has achieved nothing less than a small revolution by effectively turning themselves into sales representatives for the world’s second-largest consumer goods company.

Mayange had been yearning for this moment for a long time: finally, the community of this Rwanda Millennium Village has seen the light, in every sense of the word.

Located in Western Kenya, Sauri was the first Millennium Village (MV) to see the light in 2005. Five years on, the project area has grown to nearly 70,000 people and has registered numerous successes in its multi-sectoral approach.

Five years ago, Falanes Josephat hit rock bottom: she suspected her husband of being HIV positive, got tested and found out she was too. In poor, rural Malawi, this meant one thing: death. Five years on, not only is she still alive, she has a job and even a future.

Martha dusts a small table with flour then starts kneading the dough, before dividing it into tennis-sized balls. Next to her, Jennifer places the balls on a tray and straight into the oven’s open mouth.

Lunch time in Ruhiira? Look no further. ‘Fang Fang’ is the place to go for yummy matooke (bananas) and beans. The woman behind this thriving micro-business is Tumushabe Boneconcila, whose entrepreneurial spirit is doing much to both improve the quality of her own life and radically shake up ideas of traditional gender roles in the community.

A look at health in Sauri, Kenya

Mwandama health achievements in 2010

Kabagambe Fudier, head of ICT programs at Omwicwamba Primary School in Ruhiira, is truly an embodiment of what the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is all about: by utilising the tools and skills provided by the project, he has created change both in his personal and professional life.

The discussion around evaluating large-scale development projects is an important one. Michael Clemens and Gabriel Demombynes offer a critique of the Millennium Village Project (MVP) and its research methods. Their paper misunderstands the MVP’s aims and evaluation methods. We respond briefly here, to clarify some of those basic misunderstandings about the project’s goals and approaches to evaluation.

Not long ago, next to the Ruhiira Health Centre was a relatively unassuming looking building surrounded by scattered building blocks and cast in the shadow of a towering radio mast which usually had the ICT facilitator Elly Nankunda tinkering at the top of it.

Maternal health has been one of the biggest success stories of the Ruhiira Millennium Village.

It is 10:50 am on a cloudless August day in Western Kenya. The HIV and AIDS Counselor from Sauri Health Centre and I have taken the short drive to the home of Lilian Awino Adhiambo, a 32 year old mother of 6 children aged 9 months to 13 years.

WFP Director hails the “revolution of hope” in Ruhiira

Fifty farmers, including 10 women, from Sauri Millennium Village, Western Kenya, were trained in July on new concepts in water and agriculture management by a team from the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies.

When is a text message more than just “hello?” When a community health worker can text symptoms of an illness and receive an instant diagnosis without leaving a patient’s home.

Initiative 166 Council Day, a special event organized by Mali’s Commission for Food Security and its partners, was celebrated on 14-16 April 2010 in Bamako and Segou.

Yesterday, May 30, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the Millennium Villages project (MVP) in Mwandama, Malawi.

“The Millennium Development Goals: How to step up the efforts?” was the central theme of the 3rd “States General”, which took place in Brussels on May 4, 2010.

Some Important Lessons for Global Academic Innovation Earlier this month the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced more than $5 million in grants to help ten universities establish cross-disciplinary Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) degree programs in eight countries around the world.

Through sports, we can connect without words, and it is upon this belief that Japan-based NGO Amitie was founded, and they use this idea as a means of realising their vision of promoting development and cross-cultural understanding.

This week the New York Times profiled the early results of the Millennium Villages in Sauri, Kenya.

Children and mothers across the Millennium Villages (MV) will benefit from a new health application based on mobile phone technology that will be used at the household level in all sites.

It is possible! That was the key message from Margaret Ndanyi, the Director of the school health, nutrition and meals Unit at the Kenya Ministry of Education, after touring schools in the Sauri Millennium Villages Project.

On Monday 22 January, 2010, the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Jacques Diouf, visited the Community Garden of Gabane Wolof located in the Potou Millennium Village cluster.

Along with a number of partners, my main objective at Davos last week was to help ensure the global challenges of extreme poverty and the Millennium Development Goals received as much practical attention as possible.

Since it’s inauguration in mid 2006, the Mbola Millennium Villages Project (MVP), Tanzania, has addressed the disease burden in the area and malaria is cited as one of the most important health issues facing the community.

Government leaders cannot solve global challenges on their own any more. In today’s much flatter world, it is everyday people –and, critically, their personal networks–who have the potential to be the world’s big new problem solvers.

An entrepreneurial group of Mayange residents are building a new business by taking an old idea—beekeeping—and updating it with the help of training from the Millennium Villages Project and financial support from the Mayange Community Development Fund.

All were anxiously expecting it: the farmers in order to sell off their harvest, the community to buy good quality products, and the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) team to kick-start this income generating venture.

A high level Korean delegation visited the Millennium Village of Ruhiira, Uganda, on December 9, to witness achievements made possible by the partnership between the Government of Korea and Millennium Promise.

Everything in her future looked bleak. Juliana Rabilo Adele, a young girl born in a family of eight in the poor rural Kenyan village of Sauri, had struggled to join a secondary school.

On December 1 of every year Tanzanians join other people in the world to mark World AIDS Day.

Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga hailed the Millennium Villages Project’s (MVP) achievements in his country, at a meeting in Nairobi with a high-level Ethiopian delegation.

On the morning of November 19, 2009, more than 50 people gathered online and in the New York offices of Millennium Promise to participate in a roundtable discussion on water management initiatives in the Millennium Villages project (MVP).

May 2009 was a turning point for the people of the Millennium Village of Dertu, Northern Kenya.

Climate change is a reality in the Millennium Village of Dertu and Northern Kenya.

For the first time ever, more than 35 Ethiopian Parliamentarians took a two-week long tour in Kenya and Uganda in October 2009 to learn more about their counterparts’ efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region.

The genocide memorial in Nyamata, Rwanda.

Fifteen years ago, Rwanda was devastated by one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. Close to a million people were massacred in 100 days.

Patrice Nsihimymihigo’s small courtyard is covered with cassava. Sitting around it, women peel the brown roots and throw them back milky white onto the pile.

Just as September and the UN General Assembly are getting the fall off to a running start, the Millennium Promise Partners Meeting was a great harbinger of progress in Africa for the months to come.

This has been a terrific week for Millennium Promise, for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and – most importantly – for the hopes of communities and families living in extreme poverty around the world.

Instead of fundraising, last year at Carleton University, Students To End Extreme Poverty campaigned to get a question to referendum whereby students would vote on whether or not they would pay an extra $6 per person annually in tuition fees to help finance a Millennium Village.

Surrounded by an arid landscape and set on eroded soil, the Millennium Village of Koraro, Ethiopia, and its 55,000 inhabitants face an enormous challenge: how to maximize water use, especially for agriculture and smallholder irrigation.

The Community Based Management for Health program, currently being implemented across the Millennium Villages in East and Southern Africa, stopped recently in the pastoralist village of Dertu, Kenya which has 850 households (350 sedentary and 500 migratory).

The glitzy New York fashion scene and the muddy hills of a poor Ugandan village may seem worlds apart, but a backpack is bringing them closer.

Last week’s G8 Summit underscored the extent to which leaders around the world are straining to manage a flood of concurrent crises.

In the effort to end malaria deaths, Nigeria is square one: it is Africa’s most populated country, and represents one quarter of the continent’s malaria burden.

With camel and cell phone, Abdulahi Bari Barrow moves with pastoralist communities to provide education.

Sitting under a sprawling acacia tree, Abdulahi Bari Barrow points to his blackboard and asks the students to repeat the lesson after him.

Here in Rwanda, Magatte Wade’s strange recent Huffington Post blog was received with quite a bit of surprise.

Martins Okongo, opens the boxes General Electric (GE), the multi-national American technology and services conglomerate, has entered into a partnership with the Millennium Villages project (MVP) in Ruhiira, as a sign of its commitment to supporting Uganda to achieve the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Millennium Village of Koraro is located in the Hawzien district in northern Ethiopia, an area surrounded by jagged escarpments and dusty, arid land.

Recent public debates have re-focused public attention on Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic development over the past few decades.

In a recent entry in the Huffington Post, Josh Ruxin discusses why we must keep our promise to end global poverty, even during the worst economic recession of the last several decades.

Sounds of laughter intermingled with thumping feet and clapping hands ring across the room as community health workers (CHWs) in Ruhiira perform a traditional Baciga dance.

In Tanzania, the World Environment Day (5th June 2009) was marked nationally in Tabora town where the Guest of Honour was Hon Dr Ally Mohamed Shein, the Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania.

In June, a group of 12 senior editors and producers from U.S. media houses visited the Sauri Millennium Village in Western Kenya to witness firsthand development programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on agriculture and food security.

On Thursday, May 21, 2009, the Pampaida Millennium Village celebrated the launch of a new base station that will provide mobile communications to this rural Nigerian community.

On a recent fact finding mission in Rwanda, Matt Damon and a team from ONEXONE – a nonprofit foundation that supports the work of Millennium Promise – visited the Mayange Millennium Village.

Last month, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund published the 2009 Global Monitoring Report to show our progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

Ruhiira and Katine. The former is located in the southeast of Uganda, the latter in the northwest. One is a stable village, the other a post-conflict community.

Ms. Dambisa Moyo’s recent Huffington Post article exposes the confusions that underlie her slashing attacks on aid. Most importantly, she seems to believe that sub-Saharan Africa was economically prosperous and then was pushed into poverty by aid.

This past Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending a dinner event to mobilize support for the Show Me Campaign.

Large-scale infrastructure is often not included in the intervention portfolio for community-based development projects.

Since inception, the Pampaida Millennium Village has achieved many successes.

In the cold morning air heavy with mist, green waves rise gently from deep valleys up to Ruhiira’s hilltops then flow downwards again, engulfing small villages.

I had the wonderful opportunity this spring to visit two Millennium Village clusters, Ruhiira in Uganda and Sauri in Kenya, with a group of extraordinary donors.

As the Millennium Villages Project moves toward its second 5 years, the vision of the project, of jump-starting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the poorest countries, is becoming reality.

Critics of sustainable development projects initiated by Westerners in Africa often raise a question: what happens when those Westerners pull out? The answer lies in an important concept: community ownership.

A partnership between buildOn and the Millennium Villages project has completed 30 new schools in Mali. Together these 30 schools will provide access to education for up to 4,500 kids in the Mali Millennium Villages cluster.

In April 2009, the Millennium Villages project completed construction of a new road in Mali. Following alongside the Niger River, the road connects the Tiby, Mali cluster of Millennium Villages with health services and markets in the town of Markala.

Zina Salum, 24, flanked by two barefoot girls in bright dresses, waits patiently for her turn on a bench at the Ilolangulu dispensary in the Mbola cluster (Tanzania).

When holding a hammer in your hand, every problem can look like a nail.