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Jeff Sach's Millennium Village project
There are two current pieces on Jeff Sach's Millennium Village project; the first is in Harper's, the second and far superior, by Sam Rich, is in The Wilson Quarterly (I don't see the article on-line yet). Rich reports the following about the village of Sauri, Kenya:
1. Every year the project invests about $100 for each of the 5000 village inhabitants.
2. The villagers are much healthier now and the schools are better.
3. Some babies in the village have been named "Millennium."
4. The subsidies of the project have pushed villagers into high-risk crops and possibly depleted the soil.
5. Many of the giveaways, such as fertilizer, are simply resold on external markets.
6. The creation of a committee for allocating project resources has weakened the village's government and in effect created a more powerful shadow government in the village.
7. People who live or work in the village have financial incentives not to speak honestly about what is going on there.
8. Witchcraft still plays a major role in village elections and decisions.
9. It is not clear what will happen when the project ends in three years' time. Or should I say it is clear?
In my view Sach's work is admirable and will do much to improve the lives of a small percentage of Africans. But I do not think it is scalable. First, I believe the candidate villages are cherry-picked for possible improvement. Armed conflict remains a huge problem on the continent. Second, one key non-scalable ingredient is Sachs himself. His reputation is worth a great deal to him, and these projects will receive scrutiny and study; he has strong incentives to make sure everything goes as well and as honestly as possible. That incentive vanishes once we implement such ideas on a bigger scale and through other institutions. File this one under "Wonderful but oversold."
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 24, 2007 at 07:47 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Second, one key non-scalable ingredient is Sachs himself.
Excellent touche'! I knew that talent doesn't scale well, it seems that reputation is also in this category.
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Apr 24, 2007 8:33:48 AM
The sixth point is a very profound one. Rent-seekers are everywhere.
Posted by: The Utilitarian at Apr 24, 2007 8:42:49 AM
"a small percentage of Africans"
That's a still a lot of people. We should be lucky to be so unsuccessful. We don't think of people doing social work in the US as failures even when they achieve only a fraction as much. Why would we have higher expectations of someone in Africa, which is a harder job politically and culturally?
Posted by: D at Apr 24, 2007 9:13:55 AM
D, the question as ever is not whether this project is net beneficial but whether it is the optimum asset allocation strategy. In other words, what are the opportunity costs?
Posted by: David Gillies at Apr 24, 2007 10:53:19 AM
While these people usually mean well, they often want their efforts judged by their intentions rather than the results.
Posted by: Chris Meisenzahl at Apr 24, 2007 12:17:47 PM
Not to be picky, but isn't he Sachs, not Sach?
Posted by: David Honigmann at Apr 25, 2007 3:14:17 AM
Witchcraft still plays a major role in village elections and decisions.
So does Christianity in American public life.
Posted by: Pablo Stafforini at Apr 25, 2007 8:53:29 AM
D, the question as ever is not whether this project is net beneficial but whether it is the optimum asset allocation strategy. In other words, what are the opportunity costs?
Funding for a village of 5000 is about $500,000 per annum, a small part of which is supposed to be provided by the villagers and the national government. If the health outcomes are as improved as is suggested by #2, then I think we're close to observing the opportunity cost when we spend half a mil on anything else.
While these people usually mean well, they often want their efforts judged by their intentions rather than the results.
I'm pretty sure Jeff Sachs cares more about results than good intentions, but I'm just guessing.
Posted by: soda at Apr 25, 2007 2:39:40 PM
It seems to me to be a very pragmatic look at how to do good. Since the levels of instability throughout the continent are so high, "scalability" is almost a nonsense proposition, so Sachs has taken a per community approach to better lives and provide opportunities for the wealthy to be able to see tangible progress on their donations. He can grow his model by adding new villages, without having to deal with the regional/national entities that are often unreliable.
Your question about the sustainability of these villages after the 3(?) years strikes me as the most valid criticism. (ASIDE: why anyone would think that a continent as big and complex and multi-ethnic/national as africa should always be thought of as a whole is still beyond me.)
When Sachs spoke at UCHICAGO earlier in the year, he focused on the anti-malarial efforts to reduce infant mortality as the main initiative. Those initiatives seem to have the best prospects for sustainability in the villages themselves.
Posted by: SR at Apr 25, 2007 6:58:13 PM
Sachs has always been judged on the quality of his intentions, not on his results. He is horrifically weak on the importance of property rights institutions, perhaps because he knows that all of his projects are doomed to fail if such institutions do not develop. He does provide an intellectual gloss for the international aid industry to spend more and more of other people's money, and for that Sachs himself has become very rich. Let's not delude ourselves about his overall importance. One hundred years from now, he will be seen as more of a clever and highly-successful charlatan more concerned about reputation than results.
Posted by: john at Apr 25, 2007 8:26:05 PM
Sachs is very important, as the near-embodiment of good intentioned postive-action against poverty do-good economist. Much of his advice has been fine since the Wall fell in 1989.
Focussing on a community is OK -- I would prefer he focus on many small private companies. What all poor countries need are more entrepreneurs trying to make money (=create wealth) peacefully and honestly.
Sachs should be measuring how many folks in the watched community are in new private (=peaceful) jobs. That he's watching any metric (malarial infant mortality) is an improvement. The economic debate should be over which metrics are the best to watch, and which ONE should be the focus, if there is only one.
Private sector employment should be that watched metric.
Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at Apr 28, 2007 7:13:36 PM
Why do economists fuss over the price of fertilizer when tribal loyalty, witchcraft, and sexism so obviously constitute the true root of the problem? Can't economists just accept that, at least in Africa, most problems lie outside our profession's toolkit? Or would such an admission jeopardize our own livelihoods and marginalize our role?
Posted by: mesbah at Jun 5, 2007 3:04:26 PM
A colleague of mine noted offers a critical view about Millennium Villages
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalvillages/message/2675
The program seems by his view to repeat many of the flawed practices of development efforts of the past. In particular, he says that the program promotes the use of GMOs and industrial fertilizers. Integrated farming practices as outlined here http://green.onevillage.tv demonstrate that heavy use of agriculture inputs is not necessary.
I see nothing about sustainable development here. Also what about the need for socioeconomic decentralization in an increased corporatized, top down global economy? Much of the comments here seem to focus on how screwed up the local people are with tribalism, rent seekers and witchcraft. Oddly enough there is no acknowledgement that indigenous religions are now the minority spiritual practice in most of Africa so then how come several people here seem so fixated on witchcraft?
While I agree that tribal loyalty and sexism are problems, I think the assumption that seeing witchcraft is the problem is indeed problematic in that it assumes that spiritual beliefs needs to be eradicated. I also see the trend as overlooking colonialism as a "root cause" and instead completely focus on internal issues.
Also in relation to Tom Grey's comments why does one have to choose between community and small biz development - it seems like they could go hand in hand?
Posted by: Jeff Buderer at Jun 10, 2007 9:00:24 AM
I tend not to draw equivalence between spirituality and witchcraft. Spirituality complements our rational faculty. Witchcraft (and superstition, etc.) substitutes for it.
To wit, nobody should visit a witch doctor to receive medical treatment. Yet this is common in much of Africa's rural and underdeveloped regions. What's wrong with pointing this out?
Posted by: mesbah at Jun 26, 2007 11:56:09 AM
100 dollars per year per resident for comprehensive Aid: Health, crop assistance, trade assistance, environmental and power assistance is a remarkable feat. I am surprised to hear that they are using traditional Western fertilizer, as one of the taskforce members is reknown Dr. Pedro Sanchez who is known for alternative solutions in Africa that work. To have started the projects with just a few villages is key, as there is bound to be a learning and application curve. The fact that native belief systems are "still practiced" is, in my opinion, an excellent sign indicating that in fact the UN MVillage teams are not trying to displace the traditions but rather working with the villagers, which of course is ideal. As for Dr. Sachs and his teams: An extraordinary group of people have come together with an comprehensive goal. These people are not as Easterly would say, "Planners" but rather "Searchers" and it is my hope that both Sachs and Easterly will be proven right, that large scale projects can be effective if individuals intent on practical, feasible and sustainable solutions are focused on applying them in a way that gets community buy-in.
Posted by: Celeste Mergens at Dec 10, 2007 10:51:24 AM
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Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 2, 2008 2:33:26 AM
Spirituality is rational? Somehow turning to traditional beliefs as part of medical care is a categorically bad idea? I disagree. while superstitions by definition are not based on knowledge or rational thought, I wouldn't essentialize all of indigenous African religions into harmful, superstitions. As far as seeking medical care from a traditional healer, that's not always in direct conflict with modern medicine. Ever heard of the phrase "the healing power of prayer?" While some people understand this statement in an abstract way, many people take it literally. I think we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater by dismissing other important roles for these beliefs.
Posted by: M at Apr 16, 2008 9:49:36 AM
