MCC signed its biggest compact to date – $547 million – with Ghana on August 1. The compact aims to reduce poverty by 5% annually over 10 years and directly create 700,000 jobs over the next 5 years. The following day, CSIS hosted a panel discussion on the compact, prefaced by remarks by Ghanaian President John Kufour and MCC CEO John Danilovich.Undoubtedly, the Ghanaians and the MCC were delighted with event, a virtual love fest for Ghana. Ghana certainly deserves the love - it is a beacon of good governance, stability and progress in West Africa, and its commitment to such an ambitious compact is laudable. But I missed the more interesting exchanges that typically arise in events like this -- the ones that push participants to defend or elaborate on the more complex issues in the compact development and implementation process. Questions and issues like those raised by CGD’s Sarah Lucas in her Field Report on Ghana: How does the compact synergize with other donors’ development efforts? Does adding MCC-specific oversight structures complicate Ghana’s already crowded bureaucracy and detract government attention from other donor and self-financed development programs? How exactly are the compact’s programs linking the poor to the hoped-for economic growth? Was the social infrastructure component of the compact really ready for prime-time? Now that the compact is signed it seems that MCC and Ghana are forced to figure out along the way how these factors play out.For me, two welcome and very interesting take-aways:1. The Ghana compact will use a distinctive approach to monitoring and evaluation modeled on randomized clinical drug trials, implemented jointly by MIT and a Ghanaian research insitution. MCC will randomize what interventions are undertaken for which groups in order to gain a better sense of program impact.2. President Kufour called for independent reviews of the compact process and progress during its various stages of implementation. We'll certainly be keeping an eye on implementation progress, as we hope will many of you.Would love to hear from others who were at the event or have been following the Ghana compact process!
