5 March – Millennium Promise

I have left the charity angle out of these entries because I was determined to keep work and play separate. However, this trip is so tied to Millennium Promise that I fail to accurately portray what life is like on the ground. Whenever we enter a larger town and can access internet, a good section of that day is spent writing mails and pitching for corporate donations. Team admin often comes before tourist entertainment or even a good relaxing evening. We are checking for mails from friends and family, but emailing sponsors and media contacts and updating the website… and given African internet connections, it is a painfully laborious process!

We do this because we, as a team, believe in Millennium Promise and their commitment to the 400 000 people currently within their program. I was sold when I read Jeffrey Sachs’ book titled The End of Poverty – read it! It is the first empirically based, practical and positive angle I have read on Africa’s problems and the solutions going forward. He is possibly the world’s most influential economist, has worked for the likes of Kofi Anan, and led the team who constructed the Millennium Development Goals… But most importantly for me, he is not cynical but pragmatic, optimistic but not naïve, and he does a brilliant job at making you feel likewise! He genuinely believes that we can end extreme poverty by 2025, and maybe I am young and idealistic, but I want to believe him.

Millennium Promise is one of the vehicles that he believes will enact change. The organisation is structured on clusters of villages of approximately 5000 people each. Countries are chosen based on political stability and in areas where there are good relations with local public officials. Villages are then supported on a five-year funding plan with a forty percent buy-in from government. It is an integrated plan that supports the eight areas of the Millennium Development goals concurrently such that the different areas support each other. Examples of support include road infrastructure, access to water, agricultural support, small business development, education, women’s empowerment, malaria and HIV prevention and general health…

The differentiating factor of this organisation is that after five years it withdraws funding on the basis that at this point the village is self-sustaining. In my opinion this is not a hand-out but an investment that leads to a grouping of people that are in a position to support themselves and their families.

We are raising money for the village of Mbola, Tanzania. It costs them $300 000 to support the village of 5000 for the year, and so this is our target. We have currently raised $140 000, which is awesome work, but has room for improvement! In effect, we will be part of a team that enables 5000 Tanzanians to end poverty. That is pretty mind-blowing for me. I am honoured to be a part of this team; and when I say “team” I refer to the many, many people that have contributed time and effort in getting behind this trip. This is not about 6 people cycling the length of Africa.

One of my favourite books is Tipping Point – Gladwell describes the how social epidemics are created. This might sound less concrete than the $300 000 we hope to raise, but for me personally, a large part of the value within this project is discovered in its knock-on effects - by the people who are inspired to join the campaign to end extreme poverty, by students who may feel a little more empowered to do something proactive, and by an older generation who may feel just a little less cynical about Africa’s future. I sound a little idealistic, but this project is given power by the people that it touches, and who might be inspired to do something or simply remember the name Millennium Promise for that day when he/she is given the opportunity to join the team.

I don’t mean this as a donations drive – this is simply to explain why I believe in this cause and why it is such an integral part of this trip.