Who Passes the MCC’s FY12 Selection Hard Hurdles?

This is a joint post with Owen McCarthy.The MCC’s selection process is unique this year. The MCC recently adopted a new selection system and will run both the new and old selection systems for FY2012.  The new system includes two hard hurdles that countries must pass to be considered eligible for compact selection.  The MCA Monitor’s annual hard hurdles note offers a breakdown on how FY2012 candidate countries fare on both the control of corruption hard hurdle and a new “democratic rights” hard hurdle.How will the selection systems work?  In both systems, countries will be measured in relation to their income-level peers.  In the old system, countries will be assessed on 17 indicators in three policy categories: ruling justly, investing in people, and economic freedom.  To pass the indicators test, countries must pass half of the indicators in each category and the control of corruption hard hurdle.  In the new system, countries are evaluated on 20 indicators in the same three policy categories.  To pass the indicators test, countries must pass half of the indicators overall, one indicator in each category, the control of corruption hard hurdle, and the democratic rights hard hurdle.Some of the hard hurdle highlights this year include:

• Of the 60 low income candidate countries, 30 pass the control of corruption hard hurdle and 34 pass the democratic rights hard hurdle. Twenty-two countries pass both hurdles.
• Of the 30 lower middle income candidate countries, 15 pass the control of corruption hard hurdle and 23 pass the democratic rights hard hurdle. Fourteen countries pass both hurdles.
• Five of 24 compact countries fail the FY2012 control of corruption hard hurdle.  Three – Armenia, Honduras, and Nicaragua – have completed compacts.  Indonesia and the Philippines are both recent compact recipients and both fall below the LMIC control of corruption median this year.  No previous compact countries fail the democratic rights hard hurdle; however, one current compact country, Jordan, fails the democratic rights hard hurdle.

Countries that Pass the Hard Hurdles To pass the corruption hard hurdle, a country must score above the median (the 50th percentile) as in years past. To pass the democratic rights hard hurdle, a country must score higher than 17 on the political rights indicator and/or higher than 25 on the civil liberties indicator.  (The new system replaces median thresholds with absolute thresholds for these two indicators.)Stay tuned for the MCA Monitor’s upcoming complete analysis of the FY2012 indicators and selection processes.