Welcome
At the Millennium Summit in September 2000, the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, with a deadline of 2015, which have become known as the Millennium Development Goals.
The eight MDGs are global targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions—income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter and exclusion—while promoting gender equality, education and environmental sustainability. They are also basic human rights, the rights of each person on the planet to food, health, education, shelter and security. Those global targets must be translated into local action.
By early 2004, concerns had been raised that most of Africa had gotten off track with respect to achieving the MDGs, so the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York and the UN Millennium Project (UNMP) established the MDG Technical Support Centre in Nairobi in July of that year.
The Centre, renamed The MDG Centre in 2006, initially focused on policy support at the national level to selected pilot countries of the UNMP (Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal and Ghana). With the successful completion of the UNMP in late 2006, the Centre broadened its scope of work to include advisory services and support to the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) and to scale up MDG-related interventions to district and national levels in East and Southern Africa.
The MDG Centre operates in seven countries in East and Southern Africa--Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda—and has plans to engage with at least three more countries in the region. The Centre also provides technical backstopping to the only Millennium Village in Asia, in the Samlaut district of Cambodia.
A second MDG Centre with a mandate for West and Central Africa was established in Bamako, Mali, in 2006.
News
Columbia University opens first center for Africa in Nairobi, January 2012
Millennium Villages Project plants trees in Zomba, January 2012
Millennium Village reforests Mwandama, January 2012
Sia village on course to achieve millennium goal, November 2011
Millennium Village Gets Sh300 Million Solar Facility, October 2011
Sauri Millennium Village school feeding program receives Kenya-wide attention, October 2011
Tanzania Courts Foreign Investors for Rapid Growth, October 2011
Perspectives on Monitoring and Evaluation in the African Millennium Villages, October 2011
The Millennium Villages Project is working well, October 2011
Social Media Leapfrogs Drought-Hit Nation into a New Generational Oder, October 2011
Billionaire, UN expand EA village project, October 2011
Mobile Phone: Weapon Against Global Poverty, October 2011
Scaling Up the Millennium Villages Project, October 2011
Billionare George Soros giving $27.4 million for African villages development project, October 2011
UN Project makes "tremendous breakthroughs" towards MDGs: director, October 2011
Soros giving $27.4 million to village project, October 2011
UN-backed Millennium Villages Project in Africa launches second phase, October 2011
Millennium Villages, on Track to Achieve 2015 Goals - Press Conference, October 2011
The Power to End Poverty, October 2011
Sacco Mayange Roots for Self Reliance, October 2011
Rwanda to Scale Up Millennium Villages Model, September 2011
Mobile Links Bring Progress to Millennium Villages, September 2011
Gov't, U.S. Varsity Partner to Accelerate MDGs, September 2011
MDG Centre Nairobi hosts the Merry Year Foundation, key Millennium Village partners, August 2011
Anti-Drought Success Story: Dertu Village, August 2011
Famine and hope in the horn of Africa, July 2011
The Horn of Africa crisis is a warning to the world, July 2011
Government to introduce health information system, July 2011
Jeffrey Sachs on Uganda economic growth, July 2011
Relief aid 'no solution to Africa drought', July 2011
Drought Disaster, July 2011
Jeffrey Sachs blames Europe for drought, hunger in Africa, July 2011
Somalia cries for help as world boosts drought response, July 2011
Knee-jerk response to drought must end, July 2011
Mobile phones to speed up healthcare delivery, July 2011
Food security has global implications, June 2011
Mwandama impresses Japanese Ambassador, Apr 2011
Villagers get boost on MDGs, April 2011
Hilfiger foundation supports education, April 2011
Tanzania: Village strives to fight poverty, April 2011
Op-ed by Youssou N'Dour & Amadou Niang, Mar 2011
Events
New health and community facilities in Sauri, July 2011
Merck Foundation supports the CHW program, May 2011
UNAIDS-MVP partnership: results review, April 2011
Scholarships to 19 students from Mbola, March 2011
Read now Ruhiira's first newsletter, March 2011
The health program gets a WHO award, February 2011
Mwadama mentioned at UN MDG summit, September 2010
Ban Ki-moon visits Mwandama, May 2010
Media
Mobile technology improves health delivery in Sauri
Livestock trade booms in Dertu