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Yara was the first private-sector company to financially support a novel concept for rural development in Africa, the Millennium Villages. The company and groups of employees have sponsored the villages Sauri in Kenya and Mwandama in Malawi.
The Millennium Villages (MV) concept is a direct response to the challenges posed by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2000. It was initiated by the UN Millennium Project and the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and is now run as a partnership between the Millennium Promise, the Earth Institute and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Funding is received from a number of public and private sponsors.
Sponsorship of the MVs has been part of our Africa Program, a contribution towards meeting development goals for Africa by supporting the African Green Revolution. Support for the villages was initiated in connection with our 2005 centennial celebration, and employees in Norway and the Netherlands have been involved in supporting the respective villages in Kenya and Malawi.
The concept aims to fight poverty in Africa, with efforts focused at the grassroots level to achieve rapid results and put communities on a path to economic empowerment and social development.
The program is based on the idea that impoverished villages can transform themselves if empowered with proven, powerful, practical technologies – including improved seeds and mineral fertilizers to increase food production – through a “bottom up” approach that lifts them out of the poverty trap. A comprehensive approach addresses all major constraints to development simultaneously - investments are made in health, infrastructure, education, agriculture and nutrition, and in water, sanitation and environment.
A MV comprises a group of rural communities of approximately 5,000 people, and is located in so-called poverty pockets in the respective country. Empowerment of local communities is considered critical to the success of the MV, so the respective village projects are led and executed by the communities involved.
Although disputed to some extent in professional development circles, the concept has received much attention and acclaim, with independent reports pointing to tangible progress. Among the most visible achievements are those found in agriculture, with dramatic increases of yields, resulting from the distribution of subsidized fertilizers and improved seeds, and from an intensified extension service.
Sauri in western Kenya was the very first Millennium Village, established in December 2004. Yara supported the Sauri MV over a four-year period, from 2005 through 2008.
Located in the Sauri region in the Nyanza province of western Kenya, Sauri is a cluster of 11 villages covering nearly eight square kilometers, with more than 50,000 residents. The area is designated a "hunger hot-spot," largely dependent on subsistence agriculture. Most householders are subsistence or sub-subsistence farmers, and many residents rely on assistance from people living and working outside Sauri to supplement their farm incomes.
About 60 percent of agricultural land is of low fertility. The main crop is maize but farmers also produce beans, sweet potatoes, bananas, plantains, cassava, kale, tomatoes and onions. Maize production in Sauri has more than tripled as a result of improved inputs and techniques.
In 2005, Yara signed a three-year agreement to co-sponsor the MV program in Sauri, with annual donor funding of USD 200,000, then extended it one more year. Yara employees in Norway also sponsored the project via monthly deductions from their salaries, which funded a school meals program. Along with contributions from the communities involved, this provided the core funding for a broad range of practical local assistance.
Mwandama in southern Malawi became a Millennium Village in 2006. Yara supported the Mwandama MV for a three-year period, from 2006 through 2008.
Mwandama MV is located in the Zomba district, close to the Mozambique border, with more than 5,100 residents. Before being designated as a MV, the settlement had no health care, and almost half of the children under age five were underweight and malnourished. Most water came from unprotected springs, representing a health hazard.
The area is intensively cultivated by smallholders growing maize, pigeon peas, cassava and groundnuts, and by commercial estate owners growing tobacco and maize. Frequent droughts have compounded the problems associated with crop production in the area. Yield increases in Mwandama have been remarkable, up to 1000 percent, since the start of the project, and there has been a diversification into high value fruits, vegetables and herbs.
In 2006, Yara made a commitment to provide annual funding of USD 200,000 to the MV for a three-year period. Employees at Yara’s Sluiskil plant in the Netherlands pledged to provide funds for drilling 15 boreholes. This initiative has been met with great enthusiasm, and employees raise money through lotteries, sponsored sporting and fitness events and the sale of T-shirts. The drilling project of four wells was completed in 2008. Employees at Sluiskil still support Mwandama MV, even after company sponsorship has ended.
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