George Soros to donate $50 million to the Millennium Villages Project

Financier and philanthropist George Soros on Tuesday announced he will donate $50 million to the Millennium Villages Project -- which aims to fight poverty and diseases, including malaria and HIV/AIDS, in villages throughout Africa -- the New York Times reports (Dugger, New York Times, 9/13).

The five-year project -- which was launched in 2005 and is part of the U.N. Millennium Project -- is led by Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and U.N. special adviser on global poverty.

The villages project, which operates in 79 villages in 10 countries, aims to end extreme poverty by helping villages achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals through the provision and use of practical technologies such as insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria and antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS (Reuters, 9/13).

Soros on Tuesday said he believes the program has humanitarian value (New York Times, 9/13).

"This is a very important project," Soros said, adding, "It's meant to serve as a prototype that can be scaled up.

If it's successful, it can really be scaled up and make a major impact on rural poverty in Africa" (Reuters, 9/13).

The contribution, which will be disbursed over five years, marks the biggest single donation Soros has made since 1997 (BBC News, 9/13).