I was surprised to see a recent report in The Economist suggesting that the Millennium Villages Project has failed in its efforts to scale up. As the advisor who served three presidents in Nigeria over the last six years in order to scale up the Millennium Villages to tens of millions of people across the country, I'm surprised to have not received a call from the magazine to check the facts on what is actually a widely discussed and readily available case of nation-wide scale up.

Some background: for the six years that I humbly served as the special assistant to the president on the Millennium Development Goals, I worked hand in hand with local government leaders to develop a project known as the Conditional Grant Scheme for Local Government Areas (CGS-LGA). After 2005, when Professor Jeffrey Sachs first alerted me to the important project he was launching in order to help Africa meet the Millennium Development Goals, our nation was delighted to take the concept into practice and launch two Millennium Village sites, then reaching about 45,000 people.

The government of Nigeria was inspired to go beyond just those sites and to scale up the MVP model to tens of millions more, by working through a local government context. In partnership with Jeff and his team, we not only achieved the robust design of an ambitious program in 113 local governments covering 20 million Nigerian poor but have also inspired our parliament to invest more resources to reach all 774 local governments in our country by 2015. The project is Nigeria's, and, of course, builds on Nigeria's own organization, needs and strategies; the concepts and approaches of the Millennium Village project are key inspirations and techniques.

The funding for this scale up is our own. The government of Nigeria is using the billion dollars per annum that it receives in debt relief to take this project to scale. We believe it is the right model to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals for our poorest people. Despite Nigeria's incredible economic growth, too many mothers still die during childbirth, too few children make it to their fifth birthday, not enough girls are reaching secondary school and the real chance to break out of the poverty trap. We've seen the Millennium Village model work first hand. The people of Nigeria deserve a real shot at ending poverty and the MV model helps to design effective ways to do just this.

It's hard for those of us who work day in and day out, on the ground to fight poverty to see such flippancy and carelessness in the media. This is especially true in this case, where the facts are so easy to ascertain.

The truth is simple. Just as Nigeria is scaling up the Millennium Villages Project's ideas and tools to millions throughout the nation, more and more parts of Africa are working with the Millennium Village teams to adopt the concepts of integrated rural development and the specific tools and approaches of the project for application and adaptation in their own countries. The Government of Mali is working with the MVP team to scale up the concepts to 144 communes. Rwanda too recently signed an MOU with the MVP to work on national-scale integrated rural development throughout the country.

Let's hope The Economist gets this story right and commits itself to doing a better job of telling the story about how Africans themselves are leading the fight against poverty -- taking the best practices from the best projects and using their own funds to meet the Millennium Goals. It's a story worth telling, after all.

Amina Az-Zubairb  CEO, Center for Development Policy Solutions

PRESS BRIEFING BY THE STATISTICIAN-GENERAL OF THE FEDERATION/CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATIONAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS, DR. YEMI KALE HELD AT THE CONFERENCE  ROOM, 5TH  FLOOR, NBS HEADQUARTERS, CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT, ABUJA ON MONDAY, 13TH  FEBRUARY, 2012.

PREAMBLE

2. It is with great pleasure that I present to you today, highlights of the “Nigeria Poverty Profile Report 2010”, a report which emerged from the recently concluded Harmonised

Nigeria Living Standard Survey (HNLSS) conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) with support from the World Bank, DFID (UK) and UNICEF.

3. As part of its functions to produce statistics for evidence-based policy-making and as the authoritative source and  custodian of all official statistics, NBS periodically conducts the Harmonized Nigeria Living Standard Survey which is used, amongst other things, to determine poverty and inequality trends in Nigeria. The data collected by NBS through our regular surveys and via our system of administrative statistics around the country present a vital source of evidence, as they provide us with clear, objective, numerical data on all aspects of our lives and the state of our country.  NBS has presence in every state of the federation with staff who collect data on various socioeconomic indicators on a regular basis to fulfill our mandate. This way we are able to monitor various trends across the country at a disaggregated level. To demonstrate that NBS remains committed to improving statistical development in Nigeria, the institutional capacity to deliver on its mandate is being strengthened regularly with increased levels of collaboration between NBS and our partners in the public and private sectors, including the press.

4.  In recognition of the fact that it is impossible, given limited financial resources, to collect  data  on  every  area  of  life,  we  are  ensuring  that  the  data  collected  by  NBS  is demand-driven and user-specific. Concomitantly, we are expanding our scope to include more aspects of socio-economic life, deepening our analytical competence and enhancing the professionalism of staff. A recent innovation is to announce, in advance, the expected dates of publication of survey results and data releases, which can be found on the official website.  For example, a visit to our website at  www.nigerianstat.gov.ng would reveal that we plan to publish inflation data for January 2012, the first since the partial removal of fuel subsidy, next Monday. The planned dates of release for other types of data can be found on the website.

5. As you may have observed our data releases have been mixed: some positive and others negative. We would therefore continue to publish accurate and timely data

regardless of whether it is positive or negative because the information we provide is useful as a guide for government policy, business investors, as well as a veritable tool for the public to evaluate the performance of government and the progress of our society in the interest of growth and development in Nigeria.

READ THE REST: http://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/uploads/latestRelease/b410c26c2921c18a6839baebc9b1428fa98fa36a.pdf

Raising Malawi- was initiated by Madonna with a partner that is dedicated in contributing to the well being of less privileged women and children of Malawi. Madonna who was known as a material girl was projected as being mundane by the media. But with this African venture she has defined herself and show to the whole world what is important to her. Family, children and philanthropy are the core and at center of Madonna’s life.

She is now building a modern Academy school for girls in Malawi while caring for AIDS orphans. According to her the Academy school can become a model for girl schools in Africa. Madonna’s love for Malawi started when she adopted a boy from Malawi, since then she has adopted a girl from the country. Madonna was known for being compassionate but this strategic move on her part was unexpected. Thinking in the line of uplifting the poor by laying a strong foundation for scholarship and education is a strategic move. By providing education to the less privileged girls of Malawi she had opened a door of opportunity and empowerment that cannot be taken away from them.

No type of philanthropic effort that can be undermined nor underrated but some are more durable and everlasting than others. When you feed a hungry person, it is a noble gesture. But when you give a poor person a skill, you have changed the life. When the poor can feed herself especially in developing world the significance is enormous. Instead of the continuous lecture about caring for the poor, Madonna is doing something about it. African leaders will receive thousand of recommendations on how to eradicate poverty but a Madonna is taking the step to change the lives of young girls. By empowering these young girls the entire village has been empowered. Education is the greatest tool to eradicate poverty for it will enable the recipient to think wisely and venture into the world without ignorance and illiteracy.

The greatest strike against young girls of Africa is lack of opportunity, in some instances they are compelled to start working at every tender age. As a result of poverty and lack of opportunity, girls and boys could not even attend primary school in some parts of Africa. When young minds are condemned to life of ignorance, they dwell in darkness and abject poverty.

Madonna deserves a lot of credit for helping the poor of Malawi and it shows the content of her character. Madonna, one of the greatest musicians of our time and Hollywood actress do not have to put her money, time and prestige to help a nation that is very far away. But she has compassion and love on the suffering children and blighted youths. Instead of calling meetings and conferences she set a project in motion to solve the problem the best way she can. She put her money where her compassion was and by so doing pushed our collective humanity to a brighter corner.

Poverty and lack of opportunity have destroyed lives of children in Malawi and Africa. Madonna project in Malawi involved helping thousands of children that were orphaned by AIDS. These children need somebody to help and guide them. Nobody is saying that Madonna is an angel but she done something that only a person with the fear of God will do.

Education and healthcare will bring a great beginning for the children of Malawi and Africa. Madonna has become part of the solution and this is a victory for the children of the world.