Sauri Millennium Village

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Sauri is an eleven-village conglomerate located in the former Nyanza Province of western Kenya and was the first and largest of the fourteen Millennium Village Project (MVP) demonstration sites that ran from 2005 to 2015 in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of the MVP in Sauri was to halve extreme poverty of villagers living below US$1 between 2000 and 2015. The overarching goal was achieving sustainable development through progress in public health, education, infrastructure, and agricultural productivity.^[1]: 2

The experiment in Sauri aimed to provide further learnings for Kenya's Ministry of State of Planning, National Development (MPND) to replicate development initiatives in eight other Kenyan districts. As well, the lessons would help develop a more comprehensive plan for the Kenya Vision 2030 for Macro-economic Growth (KV2030), which is the Kenyan government's commitment to realize the Millennium Development Goals and the elimination of poverty by 2030.^[1]: 2

Although Kenya adopted integrated rural development (IRD) approaches to target economic growth and poverty since the 1970s, close to eighty percent of the Sauri population lived below the US$1 a day poverty line in 2004 (prior to the adoption of the MVP).^[2]: 16777 Sauri was first chosen due to its high incidence of poverty and hunger. Some of the initial MVP interventions were increasing food production, controlling malaria, constructing a functional clinic and safe drinking water points, and building community capacity.^[1]: 21

The Sauri Millennium Village Project (SMVP) began in December 2004 with an annual investment of US$2.75 million, which was a record-breaking monetary amount used to alleviate poverty in an African community of its small size.^[3] Jeffrey Sachs, the MVP founder, described Sauri as a village "that's going to make history" and "to end extreme poverty" in The Diary of Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, a 2005 MTV documentary.^[4] The degree of success or failure found in the SMVP is considered a defining turning point in the development debate – in determining whether developed countries should invest more or reduce foreign development aid.

This project's success is under intense scrutiny within Kenya. It is widely known that the MVP has shown short-term results in helping Sauri establish agricultural, educational, and health programmes, and attracting other financial and infrastructural investments from other NGOs.^[5] On the other hand, it is argued that these programs lack long-term sustainability, undermine the complexity of poverty, create new yet confusing power structures, and lack clear exit strategies. These issues further challenge the longevity of development in Sauri and pose potentially problematic implications.^{[1]: 191-193}