Cross Cutting Lessons from Seven Millennium Challenge Account Countries

In a new brief, Lessons from Seven Countries: Reflections on the Millennium Challenge Account, Sarah Lucas, former senior associate for research and policy at CGD, draws together observations and reflections on the common key themes, successes and lessons that emerge from her country reports. Her analysis is based on visits to seven MCA countries conducted between July 2005 and March 2007 on behalf of the MCA Monitor. These visits caught glimpses of different aspects of the MCA experience including compact development, compact implementation and the threshold program. Lessons and observations from these countries fall in to four categories: successes of the MCC approach, key challenges going forward, big-picture lessons on aid-effectiveness, and specific operational recommendations.