385 however, these prices have been rising at comparable rates, suggesting that the price increase within and outside of sauri is not necessarily due to the outcomes of the project, making its impact in this regard somewhat ambiguous for development agencies.: 385 grain banks and storage facilities were set up prior to harvesting seasons in order to reduce the amount of postharvest losses that resulted from the surplus of crop yields. because productivity increased, farmers had surpluses they could store in these grain banks and improve the food security of the community during lower productive harvesting seasons.: 88 these storages were improved in the second year of the project to maintain optimal conditions of the grains over longer periods of time.: 88 community engagement one of the key concerns of the mvp was to engage local people and create “bottom-up”, sustainable processes of development. however, many foreign experts and leadership structures were introduced to sauri.: 5 although training sessions and interest groups experienced high participation and fostered local community leaders, they did not represent the traditional village administration.: 118 luo power structures in the sauri sub-location are organized through a chief, village elders and specific age and gender roles that would sometimes interfere with implementations of the mvp.: 93 social networks the notable impacts on the community and change in sauri's social network structures were some of smvp's unintended consequences. the development initiatives in sauri became sources of networking. many interest groups, cooperatives, and development organizations became involved and formed stronger ties within the community.: 58 agricultural groups were formed and provided participants with opportunities to create personal networks that initially generated more collaboration and further boosted locals’ expectations for the project. once they learned to benefit from the formal services, they opted to strengthen them, rather than return to previous, less skilled groups they had before the project.: 62 community members also held "barazas", which became their preferred setting for organizing community meetings, voicing any concerns, or solving disputes between each other. village elders had a key role in these interactions, as well as in bridging communication between government agencies and mvp participants.: 63 many villagers also had religious affiliations, which became another form of networking that the mvp deeply impacted. church organizations could unite community members and act as safe locations for them to receive what was perceived as organized and transparent support.: 64 nevertheless, as the project continued villagers developed a growing concern at the declining trend in collaboration. the lack of trust in the outcomes, failed promises, lack of transparency with mvp resources among the leaders, and inaccessibility by the mvp team were all constraints that began to inhibit collaboration.: 66 for example, jeffrey sachs began to arrive with police escorts to sauri, which raised fear amongst the villagers and distanced them from other leaders and project managers.: 67 given that time is a major variable in the emergence of benefits yielded by the project's interventions, some of the outcomes of the smvp will take longer to be capitalized into fungible value.: 386 mvp investments discontinued in 2015 once the term for intervention expired and the village was expected to be self-sustaining. however, a number of performance indicators suggest that the village was not prepared to continue operations independently.: 28 criticisms community engagement one of the largest criticisms of smvp is that it is a top-down approach to development that lacks consultation and a feedback loop. the “big five” development interventions that sachs identified for sauri—basic health, education, communication services, safe drinking water, and sanitation—were seen as one-size-fits-all solutions to poverty. smvp claimed to have incorporated local knowledge through consultation, but that was largely inadequate. in surveys, villagers were assumed to be a homogenous group of similarly poor individuals, and their responses were taken as mutual. this method did not consider that sauri villagers were not all equally poor or poor in the same way, and therefore had varying interests, wants, and needs. for example, large farmers that produced goods for the world market were more business-oriented, as opposed to small subsistence farmers. unable to consider these divergences, smvp's initial goals were not comprehensive enough. social relations by introducing a model that benefitted wealthy farmers, and systematically disadvantaged poor and subsistence farmers, agricultural interventions exacerbated social inequalities. smvp introduced a package of hybrid seeds and fertilizers to improve agricultural productivity. these packages were initially handed out free of charge, but were later only available to be purchased. small subsistence farmers did not have the money to buy these packages, while wealthier farms had more purchasing power and continued to reap the benefits of higher crop yields. despite an overall welfare gain of this intervention, the gains did not trickle down to the poorest of the poor in sauri. instead, by neglecting to consider social relations and long term consequences, it further harmed relations between villagers by exacerbating . choice of location sauri may also not have been the best place to receive a millennium village designation. the objective of mvp was to reduce poverty in the poorest communities in the world, but sauri had been receiving funding and assistance throughout the 1990s. since the early 1990s, the international center for research on agroforestry (icraf) and kenya agricultural research institute (kari) have been conducting research on soil fertility in sauri. further, africa now, a uk non-profit group, began funding the building of spring-protection cisterns in sauri in the late 1990s. if the mvp model were to be truly tested for its potential to eradicate poverty in the most dire communities, some critics, like the journalist victoria schlesinger, believe that it would have been more logical to make millennium villages out of destinations that have never received external funding or support. while the response has been that sauri was chosen because of its high levels of poverty and hunger despite having received assistance, critics have accused project managers of choosing sauri due to its higher potential for success, which would bode well for the mvp model. evaluation of impacts weak impact evaluation has also created quite a stir among critics and observers of smvp alike. careful project assessment is a necessary mechanism for weeding out project inefficiencies, improving resource allocation, and measuring up project outcomes against its goals. however, mvp data has very strict access, and independent researchers are not allowed to access these files or request interviews with mvp staff members to gain a better understanding of the project. as a result, the public has continually questioned the mvp's data collection methods. in june 2010, a public midterm evaluation of mvp impacts was released for five millennium villages, one of which was sauri.: 306–307 this report compared sauri's post-intervention circumstances with pre-intervention conditions. it did not take into account what may have occurred in sauri in the absence of mvp intervention. for example, if sauri had not been designated a millennium village, the government may have implemented similar initiatives, like building schools, improving infrastructure, allocating money to vaccination, or improving teacher training programs.: 306-307 such changes, if successful, would have also improved standard of living and reduced poverty in sauri. because mvp impact evaluation reports did not consider these counterfactuals, mvps have also been criticized for exaggerating their successes.