Essential Medicines News

At a recent visit to Nairobi, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the United Nations Millennium Project, said that the goals set forth in the Millennium Project can still be accomplished before 2015. So far, only $140 billion of the $240 billion pledged to aid agriculture, education, and fight against HIV/AIDS has reached developing countries. Sachs compares this with the $24 billion in Christmas bonuses paid out by Wall Street this year.

Still, there are successes. One is the reduction of malaria in Tanzania, as well as many other African countries, due to the distribution of free bed nets. Within a year, malaria cases were reduced from hundreds per month to nearly none. The success in a country identified as one of the least likely to achieve the MDGs can be attributed to the buy-in of international donors.

In an effort to continue development, Tanzania along with nine other African countries are participating in the Millenium Villages Project, devised by the United Nations Environment Programme and Sachs’ Earth Institute at Columbia University.

The project is concentrating on hunger hotspots. Donor money is enabling experts from the Earth Institute to develop complete sets of interventions in agriculture, economics, health and nutrition, energy, water and information technology.

The villages are run in collaboration with local communities. The aim is to lift entire communities out of poverty. From these core focus points, other projects will be developed to empower people.