MCA Monitor Tracking the Millennium Challenge Account

The Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) candidate selection process uses designations for low income and lower middle income countries that are impeding the overall intent of the MCC’s legislated mandate to work with well-governed poor countries. A technical adjustment to how graduation...

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...

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...

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...

Testimony Before the House Committee On Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health

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....

The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) was intended to complement-not replace-existing aid structures. But there are concerns that increases in MCA funding are diverting funding away from USAID. In this study, the authors find that core development aid targeted specifically at poverty reduction and...

In response to a request from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, CGD convened the Global Health Indicators Working Group to examine potential measures of a government's commitment to health. The group's report recommends eight indicators for consideration by the MCC and other donors as they...

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.

This MCA Monitor analysis draws on newly released data to explore which countries are most likely to be selected for FY 2006 funding from the Millennium Challenge Account. The authors predict that Burkina Faso, East Timor, and Tanzania are likely candidates from the low-income group, and that India...

Before the G-8 Summit, President Bush said that U.S. aid to Africa had tripled since he took office and would double again by 2010. CGD’s Steve Radelet and Bilal Siddiqi find that total U.S. aid to the region has doubled, but not tripled, since 2000, continuing an upward trend that began in 1996....

In this MCA Monitor Analysis Steve Radelet and Mvemba Dizolele address the challenges the new leader of the Millennium Challenge Corporation will face when Paul Applegarth leaves office, including scaling up activities to provide countries with a strong commitment to development with substantial...

This MCA Monitor Analysis assesses the potential impact of five new global governance indicators--rule of law, government effectiveness, voice and accountability, control of corruption and regulatory quality-- on country qualification for FY 2006 Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) funding.

Senior Fellow Steve Radelet testified in front of the House International Relations Committee on the Millennium Challenge Account.

It has long been understood that economic growth is the essential foundation for poverty reduction. The key to income growth is the expansion of jobs that pay sustainable remunerative wages, and the two keys areas of production in this vein have almost always been agriculture and labor-intensive...

Does tourism promote poverty reduction? In this MCA Monitor Analysis, Sarah Lucas assesses the potential effects of tourism on poverty reduction and suggests lessons for maximizing its poverty-reducing potential.

This paper considers what role pull instruments or challenge programs (such as the World Bank's Poverty Reduction Support Credits or the United States' Millennium Challenge Account) could play within the overall framework of foreign aid, asking how they could be designed to function as effective...

In September, the Millennium Challenge Corporation named seven countries as eligible for the MCA Threshold Program: Albania, East Timor, Kenya, Sao Tome e Principe, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen. This paper reviews the selection process and the countries selected, and offers recommendations for...

On August 31, 2004, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) announced some modest changes in the process it will use to select countries for MCC eligibility in FY 2005. This note appraises those changes, focusing on the "school completion rate" and "inflation" indicators.

This note reviews the President’s 2005 international affairs budget request and offers insight into the potential MCA allocations in the context of the broader development assistance budget. The authors note that requested funding for the MCA is lower than promised and may be indirectly coming...

On May 6, the Millennium Challenge Corporation announced the selection of 16 countries eligible to apply for funding under the Millennium Challenge Account. This note examines the seven cases in which the Board used its discretion to either include countries that did not meet the indicators test,...

In this MCA Monitor analysis, Steve Radelet uses the MCC’s recently-released data to predict which countries are most likely to qualify for funding from the Millennium Challenge Account during the first year. The MCC Board is expected to meet in early May to officially announce the countries that...

This note examines how countries are selected to receive funding under the Millennium Challenge Account. The authors argue that while the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s proposed selection process is a reasonable starting point, there are several simple steps that could be taken to improve the...

This book tackles head on the tension between foreign policy and development goals that chronically afflicts U.S. foreign assistance; the danger of being dismissed as one more instance of the United States going it alone instead of buttressing international cooperation; and the risk of exacerbating...

In this study, Steven Radelet examines the MCA's potential promise and possible pitfalls. He offers a rigorous analysis of the MCA’s central challenge: making foreign aid more effective in supporting economic growth and poverty reduction in the poor countries. He systematically explores what...

In March 2002 President Bush proposed establishing the "Millennium Challenge Account"(MCA), a new foreign aid program designed to provide substantial assistance to low-income countries that are "ruling justly, investing in their people, and encouraging economic freedom." The MCA could bring about...

Testimony before the House International Relations Committee on The Millennium Challenge Account.

The US government's proposed $5 billion Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) could provide upwards of $250-$300m or more per year per country in new development assistance to a small number of poor countries judged to have relatively "good" policies and institutions. Could this assistance be too much...

Recent discussions surrounding the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) proposal suggest that it seeks to address two somewhat distinct goals in the general area of foreign aid: increasing aid volume and making aid more selective. This brief comment seeks to clarify the nature of these goals and...

In this analysis, Steve Radelet reviews the Millennium Challenge Account’s (MCA) foundational tenets of country selection, ownership and organization. He also identifies some concerns, particularly the proposal to include lower-middle income countries at a later date; the statistical...

This paper examines the Bush administration's proposed methodology for how countries qualify for the funding from the Millennium Challenge Account in detail, exploring the judgments required and examining some alternative methods.

The devil will be in the details in the establishment of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)--as it is with most organizational innovations. In this MCA Monitor Analysis Carol Lancaster identifies five major issues that must be addressed: the political process by which the MCC will be...

In this MCA Monitor Analysis Nancy Birdsall argues that the MCA principle of country eligibility based on performance has merit, and maintains that the application of eligibility criteria may not be as restrictive as some fear.

The oldest saw in Washington is the saying "Where you stand depends on where you sit". But just because it’s old doesn’t mean it isn’t right. This paper presents the options for housing the Millennium Challenge Account. Whether it is fully or partially integrated into an existing...

This paper defines two distinct and overarching objectives for the MCA and proposes 12 criteria for assessing recipient country eligibility. The authors recommend that the MCA be targeted to the poorest countries that are eligible for World Bank grants and concessional loans.

The launch of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) holds the promise of being a watershed event in the history of U.S. foreign assistance. This paper discusses how should aid be delivered, once eligibility is determined, to ensure it is as effective as possible in supporting growth and...

This paper defines seven principles to guide the design and implementation of the Millennium Challenge Account" (MCA), a new compact for development announced by President Bush in March. It assumes that MCA resources will be targeted to low-income countries that have limited, if any, access to...

This paper examines trends in U.S. non-military global aid and how the administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2003 would affect those trends. The analysis addresses how the overall level of proposed aid compares with past levels and examines three standards for measuring aid over time:...