NEW YORK - Billionaire financier and global philanthropist George Soros has dedicated $50 million to the anti-poverty work of the Millennium Village project in Africa, his largest commitment to a single entity in almost a decade.
The donation, to be officially announced Wednesday, is being matched by other donors to bring in $100 million for the project, which works to reduce extreme poverty in African communities through a multi-pronged approach covering areas such as health, education and food productivity.
"He just empowered us to do something that is incredibly important," said Jeffrey Sachs, the anti-poverty expert who heads up the United Nations Millennium Project.
"The real payoff would be if it sets an example that can be replicated on a much larger scale," Soros told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "If this prototype can be built on, then $50 million would be just a very small seed money for what might come out of it."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060913/ap_on_re_us/soros_millennium_villages