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Toyota donates vehicles to anti-poverty NPO in Africa

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Toyota Motor Corp said Monday it will donate Land Cruiser SUVs to the non-profit organization Millennium Promise (MP) for use at Millennium Village sites in impoverished regions of Africa.

MP, a non-profit organization founded in 2005 in New York, was established by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and philanthropist Raymond G Chambers. The United Nations has indicated that poverty can cause regional destabilization, and in 2000 it adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration with a target of halving the percentage of people whose income is less than one dollar a day by 2015. To achieve the target, MP has established Millennium Village sites serving approximately 80 villages in 10 African countries and carries out comprehensive support projects that include agriculture, education, and infrastructure development.

In advance of the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development to be held early next month, Toyota said it decided to donate the vehicles following discussions with the Japan chapter of the Millennium Promise. Toyota will donate one Land Cruiser to each Millennium Village in Tanzania and Mali. The vehicles will be used for emergency transportation of pregnant women and other patients to hospitals, as well as to transport staff, agricultural seed, fertilizer and crops.

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7 Comments
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This is a fantastic initiative!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I remember installing generator and water purification equipment in Haiti after the big earthquake, items which were donated and paid for by the UN. They were stolen and broken down for scrap metal almost immediately. It turned out that the local police who were supposed to be watching the equipment got a cut of the money the thieves made.

Better keep an eye on those Landcruisers!

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Most donations from quarters that have little understanding of the locally sustainable solutions often not only add to the running costs of projects but become the impediment to the development of the initiatives themselves. When would we end these patronizing self-serving top-down solutions?

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Pontepilate,

I agree with the principle that if we give a man a fish we feed him for a day; teach him to fish, and we feed him for life.

These villages, though, now each have a car that opens many possibilities to them in terms of access to markets, health and education. Assuming the cars are diesel, perhaps they, and diesel generators perhaps, can be run on locally produced biodiesel?

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Good one. Toyota and Japan should also invest in Africa! Africa has so much economic potential. China is already getting their @5535 on Africa.

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Titanium: To be a friend with Africa is great for resource poor Japan. Japanese corporations will invest more in African countries. Some day, people will drive toyota made mini cars and three wheel carts instead of crawling on the ground.

Benefiicial to both countries.

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These are great news to help rural community achieve MDGs by 2015. In addition to Land Cruiser from Toyota Motor Co to be donated to Mbola Millennium Village in mid-western Tanzania, already Panasonic Corporation donated a stand alone Life Innovation Container which is generating solar energy to the community, primary school equiped with computers where both teachers and pupils are learning IT just as in other parts where grid power is assured and soon LIC will be used to power water from 100 m deep borehole. All these equipment are guarded by local community members and assured of local ownership and sustainability. These supports are so beneficial indeed to lift people out of abject poverty.

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