The Millennium Village Project

The Millennium Villages Project, based at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is one of the initiatives being developed under general aegis of the UN Millennium Project led by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and aims at a durable approach to escape the poverty trap. It is a new bottom-up approach to lift developing country villages out of the poverty trap that afflicts more than a billion people worldwide. Earth Institute scientists and development experts in agriculture, nutrition and health, economics, energy, water, environment and information technology are working with local communities and governments to apply a proven holistic package of interventions to help villages get out of extreme poverty. Over the past year, work has begun in two Millennium Villages: Sauri, Kenya and Koraro, Ethiopia.

Prof. Dr. Pedro A. Sanchez, Director of Tropical Agriculture of the Earth Institute Columbia University will highlight the background, approach and current status of the Millennium Village Project.