The Lancet Global Health: Lessons from the Millennium Villages Project: a personal perspective
Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development, professor at Columbia University, and director of the Millennium Village Project

“…The [Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)] call for bold advances in living standards by 2030 … To achieve these bold goals, governments will need to implement integrated rural and urban development plans over a period of a decade or more, and to do so at all levels of government, from local communities to the national government. The lessons from the [Millennium Village Project (MVP)] are highly pertinent … [and] suggest the following key steps. (1) Set clear targets to 2030. (2) Identify key interventions and budgetary needs. (3) Form teams from national to local level prepared to work in an integrated manner. (4) Establish real-time information systems. And (5) don’t expect a quiet life! Rapid changes in technology, and even in geopolitics, will force considerable innovations, systems changes, and improvisation, between now and 2030” (May 2018).