Today the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, one of two subcommittees that will decide FY 2006 funding allocations for the Millennium Challenge Account, held a hearing on the MCA. The sole witness was MCC CEO Paul Applegarth.
Today ArmeniaLiberty.com, an arm of Radio Free Europe, featured a piece on Armenia's MCA compact proposal. The piece, Armenia Makes New Bid for Extra U.S. Aid reports that Armenia has submitted a $175 million proposal to the Millennium Challenge Corporation, "almost six months after its initial application was found to be unrealistic." The initial proposal was for $900 million.
CGD senior fellow, Steve Radelet and MCC CEO Paul Applegarth were featured guests on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi show on Monday, March 21. The show provided a public platform for discussion about the MCC approach, the pace of its progress to date, and how the MCA fits into broader U.S. policy towards the developing world.
What will George W. Bush’s second term mean for the U.S. role in development? Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development, sees two related challenges facing U.S. development initiatives. First is updating and reforming U.S. aid institutions to better meet today’s foreign policy needs. Second is delivering on promises to increase U.S. assistance at a time of rising deficits.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation has posted data for each candidate country for each of the 16 indicators that will be used to select qualifying countries during the first year. This step follows its announcement in early March of the methodology it proposes to use to select countries for the first year of the program. The MCC Board is expected to meet in early May to officially announce the countries that will qualify during the first year. This memo uses the MCC’s recently-released data to examine the countries most likely to qualify during the first year.
President Bush literally shoots for the stars in his 2004 budget with a 5.6 percent increase to NASA’s budget. He doesn't just want to win this fall; he wants a legacy. I wonder if he knows that Cadillac legacies are available at Pontiac prices.
By Sheila Herrling, Sarah Lucas and Sonal Shah
On May 21, the SFRC marked up the MCA bill. "Marking up" is the process in which the members of the committee have the opportunity to add amendments to the bill being proposed by the chairman, and the committee votes whether or not to adopt the amendments.
On November 25 the Bush administration announced new details for implementing the Millennium Challenge Account. Overall, the announced steps are very positive. They underscore the administration’s commitment to making this new initiative work effectively, both in terms of full funding and in reorganizing the way that aid is delivered.