The Millennium Village Project Haiti

The Millennium Village Project, developed by The Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a community-driven, multi-disciplinary approach to lifting villages in developing countries out of the poverty that afflicts more than a billion people worldwide. The Millennium Villages Project plans to provide early successes on how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women - by 2015.

To date, Millennium Villages have been established in Africa. Since their inception in 2004, Millennium Villages have been established in 10 African countries, with a total of  79 villages. 

The Partnership Rationale
Given the need to impact the extreme inequality and poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Earth Institute at Columbia University is partnering with the Global Institute at the University of Miami Miller school of Medicine and the Green Family Foundation to extend the Millennium Villages to the western hemisphere, and, in particular, to the poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti. 

The partnership between the Earth Institute, the Global Institute, and the Green Family Foundation is among the first opportunities to extend the Millennium Villages model throughout the developing region of Latin America and the Caribbean; the most unequal region in the world. 

Specific Site Selection in Haiti:
The initial village will be established in the central plateau community of Marmont. To find out more information on Marmont, please click here, and to find out more about the Central Plateau visit here.

Partner Roles and Responsibilities
In broad terms, the Global Institute at the University of Miami Miller School will assume primary responsibility for overall project development, management, and "on-the-ground" deployment. The Earth Institute at Columbia University  will provide project deployment consultation to The Global Initiative and a project "blueprint" based on village deployment in Africa; as well as economic policy consultation to the government. The Green Family Foundation will provide start-up funding for the partnership and act as a global facilitator to support international knowledge sharing, global network development, and international funding generation.

For information about how the Millennium Villages in Africa have helped tens of thousands of people in impoverished communities, please go to: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/millenniumvillages/

This 20-minute film takes you right into the African villages to show how the Millennium Villages have impacted poverty.

For frequently asked questions and answers about the Millennium Villages project, please click here.