In September, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) 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, the countries selected, and makes three key points about the Threshold Program:
- The MCC should be clearer about its rationale for the selection and exclusion of countries from the Threshold Program. The MCC’s stated methodology for the selection of program countries does not fully explain the resulting list of countries. Board discretion was clearly applied and the reasons for this should be made public.
- Selection of the Threshold countries should be made at the same time as the selection of MCA-eligible countries to ensure consistency and transparency in the application of criteria and Board discretion.
- The funding allocation for the Threshold Program is inadequate to help countries make sufficient improvement in the indicators to qualify for the MCA.
