MPA in Development Practice4
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Water Access in Mbola MVP: Not Just Another Pipe Dream
For the first week of rotations I went out with the Water and Sanitation team in the Mbola Millennium Village. My interest slowly peaked, as the challenges of providing improved water points to the village coincided with our own struggles for water supply at the Tabora MDP student house.
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Education interventions in the Ruhiira Village: Sustainable?
By Ashley Elizabeth Henderson One of the biggest criticisms of the Millennium Village Project is sustainability. This week, as an intern on the Uganda team, I witnessed first-hand some of the difficulties surrounding the transition from project initiated interventions to community managed continuation. In the education sector, the site team has three general objectives: universal…
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Thinking of Korea in Sauri, Kenya
I am spending my summer in Sauri, Kenya. As a Masters in Development Practice student (MDP), we have a 12-week field training in a Millennium Village. The first 5 weeks consists of rotations in Agriculture/Business Development, Education, Health, Infrastructure, and Community Development. After the rotations, we will work as a team to draw up a…
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Monitoring and Evaluation is Hard*
A primary component of the Millennium Villages Project education strategy is to improve the quality of education. But are MVP interventions such as school feeding programs, classroom construction, and teacher training truly having an impact on student performance? On Wednesday I attended a planning meeting for an evaluation designed to measure just that. The standardized…
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A Week with the Sauri, Kenya Education Team
Originally posted at karibusauri.wordpress.com My first week’s rotation at the Sauri Millennium Village was with the education sector. In three short days I observed MVP sponsored computer labs, school feeding program kitchens, gender separated latrines, a monitoring and evaluation planning meeting, rainwater harvesting, school livestock; the list goes on. The education team is constantly on the…
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Sustainable Financing in the Mbola MVP?
The MDP Tanzania Team finished our first week here in Tabora town and the Mbola Millennium Village. After spending an orientation day with the Business Enterprise and Development Coordinator and learning about The Mbola Millennium Savings & Credit Cooperative Society (SACCOS) as well as the MVP input credit scheme I am left with both questions…
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Take MDP Courses in the USA, Practice in Nigeria, Graduate in Costa Rica
As a student, imagine taking courses from experts at the Earth Institute and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, living in Nigeria for two months while helping villages problem-solve the complex challenges of sustainable development, and graduating from your home institution in Costa Rica. Picture meeting at a university campus every…
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Take MDP Courses in the USA, Practice in Nigeria, Graduate in Costa Rica.
As a student, imagine taking courses from experts at the Earth Institute and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, living in Nigeria for two months while helping villages problem-solve the complex challenges of sustainable development, and graduating from your home institution in Costa Rica. Picture meeting at a university campus every…
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Improving Lives in Koraro, Ethiopia, Through the Millennium Villages Project
In July 2009 more than 20 people from eight countries set out for the Millennium Village cluster of Koraro, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, to see firsthand the progress and challenges experienced by one of the most remote Millennium Villages. Individuals represented the Earth Institute, Millennium Promise, Millennium Villages project (MVP) sites in…
AGU25, the premier Earth and space science conference, takes place December 15-19, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme—Where Science Connects Us—puts in focus how science depends on connection, from the lab to the field to the ballot box. Once again, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School scientists, experts, students, and educators are playing an active role, sharing our research and helping shape the future of our planet. #AGU25 Learn More