As the financial downturn continues to stifle economic growth in developing countries, the U.S. Congress passed a bill last week that opens the way for much-needed relief. Included in a $106 billion war-funding package was $5 billion to secure $108 billion in additional lending by the International Monetary Fund. The approval, which CGD president Nancy Birdsall had twice urged in congressional testimony, moves rich countries closer to unlocking $1 trillion in crisis lending to developing countries. CGD's Sarah Jane Staats tracks the progress of the bill as it moves to President Obama's desk for final approval.

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The June meeting of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Board was expected to reveal early signs of how the Obama administration will steer the program. CGD senior policy analyst Sheila Herrling writes that decisions to partially terminate MCC compacts with Nicaragua and Armenia are not bad, but could have been better. Herrling says placing parts of the compacts on hold instead of terminating the troubled components outright risks undermining the MCC's founding principles of being non-political and results-based.

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