TY - JOUR
T1 - The Millennium Villages Project
T2 - a retrospective, observational, endline evaluation
AU - Mitchell, Shira
AU - Gelman, Andrew
AU - Ross, Rebecca
AU - Chen, Joyce
AU - Bari, Sehrish
AU - Huynh, Uyen Kim
AU - Harris, Matthew W.
AU - Sachs, Sonia Ehrlich
AU - Stuart, Elizabeth A.
AU - Feller, Avi
AU - Makela, Susanna
AU - Zaslavsky, Alan M.
AU - McClellan, Lucy
AU - Ohemeng-Dapaah, Seth
AU - Namakula, Patricia
AU - Palm, Cheryl A.
AU - Sachs, Jeffrey D.
N1 - Funding Information:
This evaluation was funded by the Open Society Foundations, the Islamic Development Bank, and the governments of Japan, South Korea, Mali, Senegal, and Uganda. The Earth Institute gratefully acknowledges the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for supporting MDG-related activities at the Earth Institute and the many funders who contributed to the MVP. We thank the hundreds of people who have contributed to the MVP over the years, particularly the teams in the MV sites, Dakar, Nairobi, and New York. We are also grateful for the contributions of several other groups. The African Population and Health Research Center conducted quality assurance checks of survey data collection in the field and data cleaning. The Stan Development Team provided extensive support with multiple imputation and Bayesian outcome modelling. The Center for International Earth Science Information Network did geographic-data management and mapping, which was key to our study design. We received input from many statisticians and social scientists on study design and analysis. In particular, we thank Macartan Humphreys (WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Columbia University). The Independent Expert Group offered interdisciplinary advice on the evaluation strategy, including questions not addressed in this paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/5
Y1 - 2018/5
N2 - Background: The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was a 10 year, multisector, rural development project, initiated in 2005, operating across ten sites in ten sub-Saharan African countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In this study, we aimed to estimate the project's impact, target attainment, and on-site spending. Methods: In this endline evaluation of the MVP, we retrospectively selected comparison villages that best matched the project villages on possible confounding variables. Cross-sectional survey data on 40 outcomes of interest were collected from both the project and the comparison villages in 2015. Using these data, as well as on-site spending data collected during the project, we estimated project impacts as differences in outcomes between the project and comparison villages; target attainment as differences between project outcomes and prespecified targets; and on-site spending as expenditures reported by communities, donors, governments, and the project. Spending data were not collected in the comparison villages. Findings: Averaged across the ten project sites, we found that impact estimates for 30 of 40 outcomes were significant (95% uncertainty intervals [UIs] for these outcomes excluded zero) and favoured the project villages. In particular, substantial effects were seen in agriculture and health, in which some outcomes were roughly one SD better in the project villages than in the comparison villages. The project was estimated to have no significant impact on the consumption-based measures of poverty, but a significant favourable impact on an index of asset ownership. Impacts on nutrition and education outcomes were often inconclusive (95% UIs included zero). Averaging across outcomes within categories, the project had significant favourable impacts on agriculture, nutrition, education, child health, maternal health, HIV and malaria, and water and sanitation. A third of the targets were met in the project sites. Total on-site spending decreased from US$132 per person in the first half of the project (of which $66 was from the MVP) to $109 per person in the second half of the project (of which $25 was from the MVP). Interpretation: The MVP had favourable impacts on outcomes in all MDG areas, consistent with an integrated rural development approach. The greatest effects were in agriculture and health, suggesting support for the project's emphasis on agriculture and health systems strengthening. The project conclusively met one third of its targets. Funding: The Open Society Foundations, the Islamic Development Bank, and the governments of Japan, South Korea, Mali, Senegal, and Uganda.
AB - Background: The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was a 10 year, multisector, rural development project, initiated in 2005, operating across ten sites in ten sub-Saharan African countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In this study, we aimed to estimate the project's impact, target attainment, and on-site spending. Methods: In this endline evaluation of the MVP, we retrospectively selected comparison villages that best matched the project villages on possible confounding variables. Cross-sectional survey data on 40 outcomes of interest were collected from both the project and the comparison villages in 2015. Using these data, as well as on-site spending data collected during the project, we estimated project impacts as differences in outcomes between the project and comparison villages; target attainment as differences between project outcomes and prespecified targets; and on-site spending as expenditures reported by communities, donors, governments, and the project. Spending data were not collected in the comparison villages. Findings: Averaged across the ten project sites, we found that impact estimates for 30 of 40 outcomes were significant (95% uncertainty intervals [UIs] for these outcomes excluded zero) and favoured the project villages. In particular, substantial effects were seen in agriculture and health, in which some outcomes were roughly one SD better in the project villages than in the comparison villages. The project was estimated to have no significant impact on the consumption-based measures of poverty, but a significant favourable impact on an index of asset ownership. Impacts on nutrition and education outcomes were often inconclusive (95% UIs included zero). Averaging across outcomes within categories, the project had significant favourable impacts on agriculture, nutrition, education, child health, maternal health, HIV and malaria, and water and sanitation. A third of the targets were met in the project sites. Total on-site spending decreased from US$132 per person in the first half of the project (of which $66 was from the MVP) to $109 per person in the second half of the project (of which $25 was from the MVP). Interpretation: The MVP had favourable impacts on outcomes in all MDG areas, consistent with an integrated rural development approach. The greatest effects were in agriculture and health, suggesting support for the project's emphasis on agriculture and health systems strengthening. The project conclusively met one third of its targets. Funding: The Open Society Foundations, the Islamic Development Bank, and the governments of Japan, South Korea, Mali, Senegal, and Uganda.
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U2 - 10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30065-2
DO - 10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30065-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 29653625
AN - SCOPUS:85045209894
SN - 2214-109X
VL - 6
SP - e500-e513
JO - The Lancet Global Health
JF - The Lancet Global Health
IS - 5
ER -