Millennium Promise - Extreme Poverty Ends Here
Millennium Promise
Our vision is to end extreme poverty in our lifetime through innovative and holistic solutions that empower communities to escape extreme poverty. The Millennium Villages Project, our flagship initiative, is underway in 80 villages across ten countries reaching close to 500,000 people. In a fully integrated approach we support agriculture, education, health, business development and infrastructure.
We are currently running 5 projects on GoodAdds, all from the region of Ruhiira, Uganda. Please visit our website to learn more about Millennium Promise, including the other regions in which we are currently active.
Help Create a Business Information Center for New Ventures
- Topic: Business Development
- Region: Ruhiira, Uganda
A business information center serves as a water-cooler, where entrepreneurs can swap information, encourage each other, and coordinate their efforts, as grain growers are doing on the blackboard in this photo. In Ruhiira, just one business center can be shared by many entrepreneurs who cannot afford much in start-up costs. Even in rural Africa, a little technology goes a long way. The new center needs a computer to check weather forecasts, market conditions, and regional news; a phone to reach suppliers and customers; word-processing to set up contracts; a copier so that both parties gets a copy of the terms of agreement; and an energy source such as a solar array, to keep it all humming.
Contributors:
Be this project's 1st donor and your support will:
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Take the world one step closer to ending extreme poverty.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world's time-bound, quantified targets for reversing extreme poverty. While the world makes progress, sub-Saharan Africa lags behind with a widespread shortfall for most of the MDGs.
- Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
- Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
- Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
- Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
- Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
- Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
- Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
- Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
This project contributes to achieving the Millennium Development Goals to halve extreme poverty by 2015.
Who is Millennium Promise?
Headquartered in New York, Millennium Promise is a nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) status that supports the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals to halve extreme poverty in Africa by 2015. Among its initiatives, Millennium Promise operates Millennium Village projects in 80 sub-Saharan villages.
A nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) status, headquartered in New York, NY, Millennium Promise supports the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals to halve extreme poverty in Africa by 2015.
Mission: Millennium Promise is dedicated to ending extreme poverty and helping build sustainable communities in rural sub-Saharan Africa.
Millennium Villages: Millennium Promise brings together individuals, governments, NGOs and corporations to support Millennium Villages, the organization’s flagship initiative. Millennium Villages operate in 80 villages across 10 countries. By combining the best scientific and local knowledge, Millennium Villages address all major problems simultaneously—hunger, disease, inadequate education, lack of safe drinking water, and absence of essential infrastructure—to assist communities on the way to sustainable development. The Millennium Villages approach is based on the findings of the UN Millennium Project and is led by the science, policy and planning teams at Columbia University’s The Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Programme.
To learn more about Millennium Promise, visit their web site.
Where is Ruhiira, Uganda?
A group of 8 Millennium Villages with about 50,000 people in the Isingiro district of Southwestern Uganda, near Rwanda. Extremely poor roads make travel difficult. Severe deforestation has wreaked havoc on the environment, leading to lack of fuel and wood for construction, poor water quality, and poor soil for agriculture. More than 100,000 people in the surrounding area request services since villagers joined the Millennium Villages project in 2006.
Ruhiira is a highland region with 8 Millennium Villages in the Isingiro district of Southwestern Uganda, near Rwanda. Steep hillsides drain into valley bottoms to create a stream system. Extremely poor roads make travel difficult.
Population: 50,000
Poverty level: 40-50% of people in extreme poverty, with average per capita income of $250.
History: Settled by clearing a forest reserve in the early 1950s. Continued migration, increased population, and clearing for banana farms left 5% of the land under tree cover, a scarcity of wood for fuel and construction, and contaminated streams. The district is Uganda’s largest banana producer, but the community became trapped in crushing poverty.
Millennium Village Project: Village residents formed oversight committees and joined in 2006. In 3 years, the holistic interventions supported by Millennium Promise and led by the community are lifting the villages around Ruhiira out of extreme poverty.
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