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cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td>  <div id="wrap"> <div id="header"><h1><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/">Behind the Numbers: The PRB blog on population, health, and the environment</a></h1></div> <div class="hr"></div> <div class="hr2"></div> <div class="left"> <h2 class="widgettitle">Authors</h2> <ul> <li class="widget widget_authors"> <ul><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?author=4" title="Posts by Bill Butz">Bill Butz</a> (9)</li><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?author=6" title="Posts by Carl Haub">Carl Haub</a> (6)</li><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?author=11" title="Posts by Charlie Teller">Charlie Teller</a> (7)</li><li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?author=19" title="Posts by Charlotte Feldman-Jacobs">Charlotte Feldman-Jacobs</a> (2)</li><li><a 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Through targeted health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure interventions for rural African villages, the program aims to serve as a model for how extreme poverty can be diminished. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/world/africa/09kenya.html?sudsredirect=true" target="_blank">A recent article </a>in The New York Times highlights the improvements in people’s lives in one village in Kenya since the program started – agricultural yields have doubled, fewer children are dying, more children are attending school, and four times more people have cell phones. However, it’s far from clear whether this approach and success can be “scaled-up” across the country. Will health, agriculture, and education programs be effective once the national government takes control or will corruption stymie progress? The lack of rigorous evaluation of the program is another criticism by some:</p> <address>“Many aid experts have suggested that the only way to really know if the Millennium Villages are worth the expense (around $110 per capita, per year) is to collect data from similar ‘control’ villages that are receiving no help. </address> <address>‘No one would dream of ‘scaling up’ the use of a new pharmaceutical in the U.S. without rigorous evidence comparing people who got the medicine to people who did not,’ said Michael Clemens, a research fellow at the Center for Global Development.”</address> <p>The debate over replicating the success of Millennium Villages on a larger scale is a microcosm of a much larger debate over development aid in general. The article reiterates the need for rigorous monitoring and evaluation to determine what works in a specific environment with its own unique culture, politics, and needs. Too often, aid has been delivered with a “one-size-fits-all” approach, devised by Western NGOs and governments in conference rooms far from the villages and cities where programs are implemented. Donors want to know what their money is doing on the ground – how is success measured and what impact is funding having? <div style="position: absolute; top: -1000px; left: -1000px;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://drava-river-basin.net/urine-additives-c91/">Urine Detox Additives</a></div> <p>Thinking of this issue reminded me of how committed PRB is to strong evaluation of programs. For example, PRB is a partner in the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.cpc.unc.edu/urbanreproductivehealth" target="_blank">Measurement, Learning & Evaluation (MLE) Project </a>of the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (URHI). Over the next four years, the MLE project will evaluate the impact of URHI programs that target the urban poor in four countries in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with family planning and reproductive health interventions. We’re also working with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to evaluate PRB’s programs by applying a randomized clinical trial model – taking principles for evaluating medical treatments administered to individuals and adapting them to evaluating programs aimed at large numbers of people – in the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?p=44" target="_blank">Gold Standard project</a>.</p> <p>New and innovative ways of measuring program impact and effectiveness are being implemented all over the world. Aid is becoming more scrutinized, as it should be. Even though the Millennium Village program has led to some success stories, without strong evaluation, it won’t be clear which programs have worked and why, and where funding should be directed – crucial questions to answer to determine their applicability in other settings. I hope those at the project are well aware of this. In fact, The Millennium Village project will publish their midterm review later this year.</p> <br/> <p> <small> <span> You can follow any responses to this entry through the</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?feed=rss2&p=96">RSS 2.0</a> <span>feed.</span> <span>You can </span><a href="#respond">leave a response</a>, <span>or</span> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/wp-trackback.php?p=96" rel="trackback">trackback</a> <span>from your own site.</span> </span></small> </p> </div>  <div class="addthis"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=blogohblog&url=http://prbblog.org/?p=96&title=Millennium Villages and the Need for Evaluation in International Development" title="Bookmark using any bookmark manager!" target="_blank"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148im_/http://s9.addthis.com/button1-bm.gif" width="125" height="16" border="0" alt="AddThis Social Bookmark Button"/></a></div> </div>   <div class="comments"><h3>Leave a Reply</h3></div> <form action="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform"> <p><input type="text" name="author" id="author" value="" size="22" tabindex="1"/> <label for="author"><small>Name (required)</small></label></p> <p><input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="" size="22" tabindex="2"/> <label for="email"><small>Mail (will not be published) (required)</small></label></p> <p><input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="" size="22" tabindex="3"/> <label for="url"><small>Website</small></label></p>  <p><textarea name="comment" id="comment" cols="60%" rows="10" tabindex="4"></textarea></p> <p><input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" tabindex="5" value="Submit Comment"/> <input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="96"/> </p> </form> <div class="alignleft">« <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?p=95" rel="prev">Letters Encourage Participation in the U.S. Census</a></div> <div class="alignright"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://prbblog.org/?p=100" rel="next">An Inexpensive and Important Step to Improve Global Health: Pay Heed to Henry the Hand</a> »</div> </div> </td></tr></table></center>  <br/><br/> <div align="center"> <div align="center" id="ftr"><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148im_/http://www.prb.org/images/footer2.gif" width="3" height="23" align="right"/><img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148im_/http://www.prb.org/images/footer1.gif" width="3" height="23" align="left"/><span class="footertext">Services: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/Home/EmailSignup.aspx">Get E-Mail News</a>  ·  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/Join.aspx">Join/Renew Membership</a>  ·  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/Donate.aspx">Donate</a>  ·  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/Bookstore.aspx">Bookstore</a>  ·  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/Home/Contact.aspx">Contact</a>  ·  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/SpanishContent.aspx">Español</a>  ·  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/FrenchContent.aspx">Français</a></span></div> <span class="footer2text"><b>Copyright 2007, Population Reference Bureau.</b> All rights reserved. • <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/http://www.prb.org/Home/Privacy.aspx">Privacy Policy</a></span><br/> <span class="footer2text">1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW • Suite 520 • Washington, DC 20009-5728 • USA <br/> <b>Phone:</b> 800-877-9881 • <b>Fax:</b> 202-328-3937 • <b>E-mail:</b> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100614025148/mailto:popref@prb.org">popref@prb.org</a></span><br/> </div>  </div>  <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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