by Bono
First published 2017
In 2000, nearly 200 nations committed to eight Millennium Development Goals at a UN summit. Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, fresh from liberalizing Eastern European economies, turned his attention to African poverty. Rather than small projects like well digging or school repairs, Sachs proposed something bigger. His team at Columbia University's Earth Institute selected ten village clusters across sub-Saharan Africa for a decade-long experiment. They would tackle all eight goals simultaneously: reducing child mortality, promoting gender equality, fighting HIV/AIDS, achieving universal primary education, improving maternal health, and reducing extreme poverty and hunger. The approach aimed to create synergies that would help communities escape the poverty trap through good priorities, engineering, and financing. Four photographers from VII Agency documented the project sites in Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, and Ethiopia, capturing both endemic challenges and individual success stories. As the experiment concluded in 2015, experts began analyzing whether targeted development programs had moved these communities closer to their goals.
Genres: non-fiction, africa, academic
Vibes: thought-provoking
Tropes: social-change
Setting: Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, Sub-Saharan Africa
Period: 2000s, 2010s
248 pages · Hardcover · de.Mo design Ltd--in Association with the Blue Chip Foundation and VII Association