In the first phase, the project was focused at the following five stations: agriculture (seed and fertilizer support, farmer training and storage expansion, crop diversification, etc.
There are the original core villages which include different agro-ecological zones covering 14 sites in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including: Sauri and Dertu, Kenya; Koraro, Ethiopia; Mbola, Tanzania; Ruhiira, Uganda; Mayange, Rwanda; Mwandama and Gumulira, Malawi; Pampaida and Ikaram, Nigeria; Potou, Senegal; Tiby and Toya, Mali and Bonsaaso, Ghana.
The project was originally funded through a combination of World Bank loans and private contributions, including $50 million from George Soros.
[13] On 13 August 2013, the Islamic Development Bank and the Earth Institute at Columbia University announced the expansion of an earlier partnership to work with African nations to support their efforts to end extreme poverty.
[17] The Government of Japan (through its Human Security Trust Fund) and private philanthropic donors (through the Earth Institute at Columbia University) provided the financing for the first set of Millennium Villages, reaching some 60,000 people.
On a per-person basis, the total village cost of $120 per person includes: Critically, the external financing needs of $70 per capita are in line with the financial commitments made by the leaders of industrialized countries at the 2005 Summit in Gleneagles.
In a review of the project undertaken by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) crop yield increases of 85-350% were recorded as well as reductions in malaria incidence of over 50%.
"[20] According to Rachel Bezner Kerr, use of fertilizers and genetically modified seeds leads to dependence of the farmers on expensive products being marketed by large industrial companies.
Note this comparison is only to one component of the Millennium Villages Project which works in many different sectors including agriculture, education, health, infrastructure and business development.
Journalist Nina Munk followed the progress of a group of Millennium Villages for several years, and in her 2013 book The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, argued that a basic flaw of the Millennium Villages program was that it was developed by Western academics who were disconnected from rural Africa and failed to understand African practices and cultures.
She cited such examples as promoting growing maize among people who had not historically eaten it or building a short-lived livestock market when there was no local demand.
[23] A self-published assessment comparing villages three years into the project to how they were initially estimated large impacts on health, agricultural yield, and a variety of other measures.
[24] As some of this may have been due to regional improvements unrelated to the MVP, an independent evaluation comparing the MV to surrounding areas finds the effects are much more modest.