Taking on Country Ownership in Africa

On June 11-12, many of Africa’s Millennium Challenge Account-eligible countries gathered in Accra, Ghana at the invitation of Minister Ndoum, Chairman of Ghana's Millennium Development Authority, to share their experiences with the MCA process and offer recommendations for how the MCC could improve its effectiveness. Countries in all phases of MCA-eligibility—from Threshold eligible countries to countries currently in compact negotiation to countries with signed compacts—participated.
The theme of the meeting was Strengthening Ownership and Accountability to Accelerate Poverty Reduction, and topics of discussion included:
--Legal considerations in compact preparation and negotiation
--How to remain an MCA eligible country
--Threshold country experiences
--Objectives and challenges of moving from proposal to compact
--Objectives and challenges of facilitating compact implementation
The meeting in Ghana signifies a couple of important things. It represents a positive step toward improved communication, both between partner countries and the MCC and in terms of peer learning. The meeting also shows that MCC’s African partner countries—by initiating a serious discussion about managing their own development process within the MCC context—are taking country ownership and accountability to a higher level.
Sarah Cannon, a Fulbright scholar at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development who is tracking implementation of Ghana's MCA compact, attended the meeting and should be posting her reflections here soon, so keep a look out.