The billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros has committed $27.4-million to help villages in rural Africa reach United Nations goals to reduce poverty and improve health and education on the continent, the Associated Press writes.

Mr. Soros said Monday that the Millennium Villages project—to which he gave $50-million upon its launch in 2006, over the misgivings of his Open Society Foundations board—”has come a long way” and now has a record of success.

The project seeks to help communities in 10 countries meet U.N. development goals set in 2000, among them cutting extreme poverty by half, reducing child mortality by two-thirds, ensuring universal elementary education, and halting the HIV/AIDS pandemic by 2015.

In its first five years, Millennium Villages helped achieve three- and fourfold gains in access to drinking water and school meal programs in the places that received aid, according to a report released Monday.