Response to “The Idealist” A recent book, “The Idealist” by Nina Munk, offers a misleading and out-of-date perspective on the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) and the work of Professor Jeffrey Sachs in fighting extreme poverty. Unfortunately, the author has based her conclusions on just two out of twelve sites– a mere tenth of the population of the overall project – and reporting on the early years of a ten-year project. Her visits to the villages amounted to an average of only 1 week per year. Munk’s reporting is based on anecdotes that are often in complete contrast to what was actually going in the few villages she did manage to see. Her account is devoid of quantitative data. The project itself will be fully and scientifically evaluated in 2015, in its final year. Munk’s anecdotal account misses the true story of Africa’s progress in the fight against poverty. This is disappointing, since the progress that much of Africa is now making in fighting extreme poverty is a major turnaround from the crisis and despair before the year 2000, when the Millennium Development Goals were adopted. Professor Sachs is the lead proponent of the view that extreme poverty is an anachronism and can be defeated by our generation, a view he described at length in The End of Poverty (2005). The Millennium Village Project, based on Prof Sachs’ vision and the ground-breaking work of more than two hundred development experts in the United Nations Millennium Project (2002-2006), sides with tens of thousands of African development experts across the continent who are working with science, technology, community engagement, and moral commitment, to end Africa’s ancient scourges of extreme poverty, hunger, and avoidable disease. Rigorous science-based approaches and creative implementation are at the heart of the Millennium Village Project. These approaches have been developed by many world-leading experts, including many of Africa’s leading development specialists, in a variety of fields including public health, environment, agriculture, civil engineering, information technology, and education. The targeted interventions include malaria control, scaled-up AIDS treatment, the deployment of community health workers, the scale-up of support for smallholder farmers, and the development of new IT tools for development programs and management. The Millennium Villages have been an important testing and proving ground for many approaches now being implemented at continental scale (http://www.millenniumvillages.org/field-notes/tag/voices-from-africa). The dramatic reduction of malaria deaths now underway in Africa, for example, drew support and encouragement from early results in the Millennium Villages. Another example of recent progress based on the Millennium Villages experience is the massive scale up of community health workers now underway in many countries throughout Africa (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=encDhLJO-GU). The Millennium Villages have been an important platform for designing a cutting-edge, information-technology-based, community health care system. As seen in the above video, community health

workers are now able to visit households supported by a range of new and powerful technologies: smartphones running innovative software (CommCare); high-quality Rapid Diagnostic Tests for malaria; and improved decision-support systems for monitoring pregnant women and children under five. Fueled by this record of economic and social accomplishments, and the support that the project has thereby engendered among host governments, the Millennium Villages Project continues to expand (http://millenniumvillages.org/field-notes/a-new-era-of-poverty-reduction-in-africa-a-perspective-from-the-millennium-villages/). Just recently, eight African national governments requested and received over $100 million in financing from the Islamic Development Bank to build or scale programs advised by the MVP. [http://www.millenniumvillages.org/press-releases/islamic-development-bank-and-earth-institute-partner-to-meet-millennium-development-goals-in-rural-africa]. In the lead-up to securing the IsDB funds, ministers and parliamentarians visited the Millennium Villages repeatedly in Senegal, Mali, and Uganda to validate the progress and the innovations already being made at those sites. These governments decided to borrow from the IsDB precisely because they saw the impact of the MVP and want to expand it. The ongoing and detailed process of African governments securing the IsDB financing was conveyed to Ms Munk, but the loans were completed after she had finished her reporting, and she has not updated her descriptions of the project. In addition to the original 10 countries in the project, another 13 countries are now undertaking their own Millennium Villages projects or projects that are closely modeled on the MVP and with MVP advice involved. This means that in total today across Africa, 23 countries have either started or will soon be starting projects based on the Millennium Village model. (http://www.millenniumvillages.org/field-notes/millennium-village-programs-now-in-more-than-20-countries). Many other countries are eager to join the project. As progress is being made, Professor Sachs and the entire MVP team are deeply honored and excited to be a part of Africa’s progress. Yes, there are many ups and downs, and one learns from both the ups and downs. With great African leadership, solid science and creative engineering, lots of perseverance, and widespread support for these grassroots efforts within Africa’s communities, great gains are possible and are indeed being made. The details of these gains, and their comparison with progress in non-MV sites, will be part of the thorough evaluation of 2015. To learn the real and ongoing story of Africa’s recent successes in fighting poverty, follow the writings of the development leaders throughout the continent. Some recent highlights are here: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ensuring-the-success-of-the-un-s-sustainable-development-goals-by-jeffrey-d--sachs and here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belay-begashaw/africa-poverty_b_3831564.html as well as the dynamic work of the Millennium Villages Project and its continuing expansion around Africa (millenniumvillages.org).