Sheila Herrling

The MCA Monitor team explores which countries it thinks the MCC Board will select to be eligible for compact assistance in fiscal year 2010.

CGD's MCA Monitor takes a look at which countries pass the control of corruption indicator for fiscal year 2010.

Burkina Faso was the first country to sign a threshold program with the MCC and the second nation to transition from a threshold program to compact implementation. In CGD’s latest MCA Monitor Report from the Field, Rebecca Schutte examines the implementation successes and challenges of the...

Senior policy analyst Sheila Herrling calls on the National Security Officer to elevate global development and enhance the impact of U.S. foreign assistance. One step: add the USAID Administrator to the National Security Council

The Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) has received wide praise for its innovative approaches to aid allocation and delivery but has not yet reached its full potential. Now, with the transition to a new administration, the MCC must take bold steps to achieve greater effectiveness, clarity of purpose,...

The MCA Monitor team presents its predictions for the MCC's selection of countries eligible to apply for funding in 2009. Steve Radelet and Amy Crone take a hard look at the tough choice the MCC has to make, and they offer suggestions to help the MCC to weather a tight budget and political...

With the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) soon to release the scorecards and performance data that form the basis of the FY09 country selection round, Sheila Herrling and Amy Crone examine how countries fare on the control of corruption indicator, the only “hard hurdle” that countries must...

This ninth MCA Monitor Report from the Field is a snapshot-in-time of El Salvador’s program in the early phases of its implementation, during a year in which the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is under pressure to increase and accelerate disbursements, demonstrate tangible impacts, and...

The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global...

Meeting today’s foreign policy challenges requires a new vision of American global leadership based on the strength of our core values, ideas, and ingenuity. It calls for an integrated foreign policy that promotes our ideals, enhances our security, helps create economic and political...

New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century calls on the next American president, Congress, policymakers and the American people to overhaul how the U.S. helps poor people in developing countries. Among the recommended steps: a new national foreign assistance strategy and a new...

On December 12, the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) Board will choose which countries are eligible for FY2008 funding in what may be the toughest selection round to date. With funding tight, new countries passing the performance test, half of the countries with signed compacts failing, and an MCC...

Amid a contentious FY2008 budget round between Congress and the White House, foreign assistance -- particularly that for development -- may face cuts during negotiations. The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) -- one of few U.S. foreign aid programs specifically targeted to long-term development...

The Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) will soon release performance data that will form the basis of its FY2008 country selection round. The only indicator that countries must pass to qualify for MCC money is Control of Corruption. CGD's Sheila Herrling and Sarah Rose have crunched the numbers for...

The board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation will soon decide how to incorporate two new natural resources indicators—a Natural Resource Management Index (NRMI) and a Land Rights and Access indicator—into the FY2008 country selection process. In a new paper by CGD’s MCA Monitor...

Since its inception in 2004 the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has been an experiment in improving the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid in a small set of poor but well-governed countries. This new MCA Monitor Analysis brief based on visits to seven Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)...

As Congress gears up to allocate some $36 billion in the international affairs budget across a multitude of foreign aid programs, CGD senior policy analyst Sheila Herrling and research assistant Sarah Rose ask whether the MCA should receive the full $3 billion requested by the president for the...

President Bush's FY2008 budget request provides a first glimpse into how the administration's new foreign assistance framework and transformational diplomacy agenda translate into who gets how much for what. In this CGD essay, authors Samuel Bazzi, Sheila Herrling and Stewart Patrick, show that the...

This week the Millennium Challenge Corp. briefed staff-level representatives of its Board on plans to add two new indicators, for Natural Resources Management and Land Rights and Access, to the country eligibility criteria starting with the FY 2008. Expand and Enhance: A Proposal to Strengthen the...

This analysis from CGD's MCA Monitor describes two new indicators of governance and policy performance that determine a country’s eligibility for Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) finance: Natural Resources Management Index and Land Rights & Access. The authors analyze the process that led to...

The MCC Board of Directors faces many important decisions in the upcoming FY07 selection round. Perhaps the most controversial will be decisions about whether to select Indonesia and Jordan to be eligible this year. The MCA Monitor predicts that it is likely that the Board will select both...

This note explores the countries most likely to be selected for FY07 eligibility for the Millennium Challenge Account. The authors also discuss key issues the Board will face this year, including deciding eligibility for the four countries with signed compacts that do not pass the indicator test....

Donald Kaberuka, the new president of the African Development Bank, leads an institution whose financial standing has been restored from the near collapse of 1995, but whose operational credibility remains a work-in-progress. This CGD working group report offers external, independent advice to...

When the MCA was first introduced, many assumed it would deliver some of its funding through general budget support. But so far it has continued funding via traditional project finance. In this paper, Herrling and Radelet review trends in development assistance toward general budget support and...

One of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) key innovations is its transparency criteria for country selection. But is the MCC as transparent in its decision-making process, particularly in decisions that are exceptions to rules? This paper argues that the MCC should deepen its...

In this companion note to "Round Three of the MCA: Which Countries are most likely to Qualify in FY 2006" Sheila Herrling and Steve Radelet offer advice to the MCC Board on how to balance the increase in qualifying countries, the desire for larger compacts, and limited funding.