Millennium Development Goals: The future of giving to Africa (and we need volunteers) October 2, 2010
There is more in the Economist related to the Millennium Villages I have copied and highligted some below
Open letter readers - John and I have discussed the Millennium Villages project together before - but not on posterous. One of the Millennium Villages is in Northern Nigeria, so John is well aware of it. As he said in one of his emails - "This is what the FF integrated model is all about, is there anyway we can link up with the Earth Institute to share what we are doing with our restricted resources?"
I tried to do something, but did not have time to get very far. There is do much that needs to be done like this - chasing information etc - which is why Dadamac Foundation needs more volunteers. Please spread the word that we need volunteers.
John - this feature is inviting comments. You may like to send one. I have highlighted relevant points - haven't copied full item because of copyright - I think they would prefer you to go to their site to read it in full..
Africa
Millennium Development Goals
The future of giving to Africa http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2010/10/millennium_development_goals
Oct 1st 2010, 11:46 by J.L. | NAIROBI and NEW YORK
JOHN MCARTHUR is the brain behind the brain of Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Mr McArthur heads Millennium Promise, the philanthropic arm of Mr Sachs's oft-praised and much-criticised Millennium Villages. Week in, week out, he tries to persuade companies and rich individuals to underwrite some of the running costs of the villages. There are 80 of them, in 10 countries. Mr Sachs conceived the villages as a solution to the end of poverty in Africa. A $5m disbursement to each village, over five years, in a range of projects, was meant to germinate success in surrounding communities. Many of the villages have been successful, lessons have been learned, but they have not yet been scaled up to a point of significance.
Mr McArthur represents the pro-aid school of thought, which argues that aid to poor countries has been insufficient and poorly spent. Sceptics say projects like the Millennium Villages hog too much money and dialogue for too little in return. (snip)
:Millennium Promise was established in 2005 as a charity dedicated to helping achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We focus on scalable models that can help the poorest communities escape extreme poverty, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Our flagship initiative is the Millennium Villages project, (Snip)Millennium Promise has also helped to launch new initiatives focused on specific issues. For example, we incubated Malaria No More, a partnership aiming to end malaria deaths by 2015. More recently we have launched Connect To Learn, a partnership with the Earth Institute, Ericsson and [the pop star] Madonna, that focuses on dramatically expanding access to secondary education, especially for girls, while leveraging modern communications technology to improve the quality of that education.
(snip)
Baobab: It seems to me that rural Africa has to go hi-tech and low-tech, avoiding consumptive middle technologies. Can you tell us a few of the technologies for African villages you are most excited about.
JM: I'm most excited about two types of technology. One is rapid medical diagnostics. I was recently at a clinic in rural Tanzania and watched a community health worker with a primary school education use a pin prick method to test a child's blood for malaria within 15 minutes. The ability to provide simple, low-cost diagnosis and treatment protocols offers transformational opportunities for rural health service scale-up. The other big technology is mobile connectivity, since it allows all sorts of "leapfrogging" across all sectors. (snip)
JM: It is a distraction to debate if aid is good or bad. It is crucial to focus on where large-scale aid has worked, why it has worked, and how those lessons of success can be scaled across the board. I think there are actually two aid debates, one that aims at provoking public attention and one that aims at solving practical problems. The public debates are a bit mysterious because they typically reward hyperbole and misframe issues and people as if they represent polar opposites. The practical debates typically have more convergence. Most people agree that aid systems should be focused on scaling known technologies, with measurable results backed by clear points of accountability. (snip)
JM: The decline in precipitation in the Sahel since the 1970s is one of the world's most significant changes in climate patterns. It is of major consequence, (snip)
JM: The worst political risks are that we have an additional billion people living in places of extreme environmental and economic strain, and these people can be ingredients for conflict, locally and beyond. The demographic challenge remains one of the world's least appreciated. The underlying demographic momentum is a deep trend, but the strains can still be curtailed through efforts to support a voluntary reduction in fertility rates around the world, including through reductions in child mortality and increases in girls' education.
(snip). I think the best case scenario is doable, and we all want to see it.\
See full article at http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2010/10/millennium_development_goals
Related item: read The Economist's take on the Millennium Development Goals.