Millennium Villages Blog

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015

Joelle Bassoul Mojon's Post Archive

Joelle Bassoul Mojon is a Millennium Villages Project Communications Specialist. She is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

‘The MVP have opened up the eyes of people,’ says Kenya’s Prime Minister

'Farmers didn’t use fertilizers because they believed that if they did, they could never stop and get out of this cycle,' added the Prime Minister, . . . [more]

Fifteen years after the genocide: reconciliation, hope and development

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. As the country continues its difficult but remarkable recovery from the genocide, the Millennium Village of Mayange is living proof that economic development can play a significant role in the reconciliation process. Mayange, located south of the capital Kigali, saw . . . [more]

Rwanda’s Millennium Village exports cassava to Burundi

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. Soon, his buyers, Rwandan middlemen, will whisk away his harvest to sell it at the border with Burundi. Patrice is one of many smallholders in the Mayange Millennium Village, 40 km South of Kigali, who have been . . . [more]

Bagfuls of Care

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. Lauren and Doreen walk side by side on a dirt road in Ruhiira, a Millennium Village in the South-East of the country, each carrying the . . . [more]

French Ambassador to Kenya Visits Dertu Village

On Monday, July 6th, the French ambassador to Kenya, Her Excellency Mrs. Elisabeth Barbier, visited the Dertu Millennium Village. She was accompanied by her husband, Mr. Avner Cohen and two embassy employees, Mr. Georges Deiner, counselor for cooperation and cultural affairs, and Ms. Pauline Wesolek, program manager. The visit came . . . [more]

A camel, a tree and a blackboard: Dertu’s mobile school

Sitting under a sprawling acacia tree, Abdulahi Bari Barrow points to his blackboard and asks the students to repeat the lesson after him. Here, there are no classrooms and no roof other than the branches, no walls other than the tree trunk which supports the blackboard, and no desk other than the straw mat laid on the sand. This is the mobile school of . . . [more]

U.S. Media Editors Stop in Sauri on Kenya Tour

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. For all of them, it was a first visit to Kenya, and for some the first trip to Africa. Standing in green, crop-heavy fields, the group listened to . . . [more]

A Tale of Two Villages

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. Many things set them apart, but both villages are striving towards better lives, sheltered from poverty and hunger. At the end of April 2009, Ruhiira and Katine were . . . [more]

Ruhiira Goes Bananas for the Fruit

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. The soft waves of banana leaves are much more than just idyllic scenery for the inhabitants. They are their livelihood, and on the green fruit depends much of their well-being. Ruhiira, a cluster of eight villages located in a lush area of Southwestern Uganda, is renowned for its bananas, matoke as they are called here. For the 50,000 villagers, this has been their staple food for generations. But years of intensive agriculture eroded the soil . . . [more]

Africa: An Open Skies Lab for Sustainable Development?

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. When someone is lifted out of the poverty trap, given the opportunity . . . [more]

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