Country Selection Timeline
Each year MCC selects countries eligible for Millennium Challenge Account grants from a list of candidates. The candidate countries are chosen by meeting one of two income tests and by not being subject to any number of U.S. or international sanctions.
A timeline for country selection:
| Time |
Event |
August 2006 |
Candidate countries selected |
Early September 2006 |
Criteria and methodology used to determine country eligibility determined |
Mid October 2006 |
Candidate country scores published |
Early November 2006 |
Eligible Countries selected |
Read more about the selection timeline.
Term of the Month: Indicator
Eligibility for MCC Compact assistance is based on a country's demonstrated commitment to policies that promote political and economic freedom, investments in education and health, control of corruption, and respect for civil liberties and the rule of law. These 16 policy indicators are developed and managed by non-governmental global development organizations.
MCC looks at several elements in choosing selection indicators. They include: consistency in results from year to year, linkage to policies that the government can influence within a two to three year horizon, linkage—theoretically or empirically—to economic growth and poverty reduction, broad country coverage, comparability across countries, analytically rigorous and publicly available, utilization of objective and high-quality data and development by a third party
Overall country rankings are determined by how well a country performs within its income peer group. The MCC Board of Directors selects eligible and threshold countries based on these rankings.
Read more about the MCC selection indicators.
Ask the Expert: Sherri Kraham
Ask Sherri Kraham, Managing Director for Development Policy, a question about the selection indicators. Should your question be chosen, it will appear with an answer in next month's Millennium Challenge Monthly. Ask Sherri a question.
Bio of Sherri G. Kraham
Managing Director for Development Policy
Sherri G. Kraham is Managing Director for Development Policy at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). She is responsible for developing policies related to MCC’s innovative approach to international development assistance, working with the development community to identify and incorporate best practices, and overseeing the annual process of evaluating country policy performance and the selection of countries eligible for assistance from the Millennium Challenge Account.
Prior to joining MCC in 2004, Ms. Kraham worked at the U.S. Department of State for seven years. She served as an advisor to an Under Secretary of State, where she oversaw various U.S. foreign assistance programs, including development, humanitarian assistance, democracy promotion, human rights, peacekeeping and security. She spent several years implementing programs related to Iraq and immediately prior to joining MCC, Ms. Kraham completed a year-long assignment in Iraq as the Director of the Program Review Board, working with the Coalition Provisional Authority as part of the first civilian team dedicated to reconstruction efforts.
Ms. Kraham received a law degree and an International Business and Trade certificate from George Mason School of Law in 1999 and is a member of the Virginia Bar Association. She received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Florida Atlantic, where she focused her studies and research on religious and ethnic conflict in the Middle East.
Notable Quotable
“On behalf of Ghana and on my own behalf, I salute President George W. Bush, the Government, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and indeed the people of the United States of America for this initiative. Secondly, the successful implementation in Ghana of the Compact, which we are signing today, will launch an epochal transformation of my country’s agriculture into modernity not only in agricultural practices but also in value addition and agro-industrialization with great promise for enhanced productivity, commerce, food security, employment generation, rural development and poverty alleviation. Thirdly, Ghana, as one of the first nine nations of the south to be benefiting from the first tranche of the account is positioning herself to apply the Compact resources so efficiently and purposefully for sustained socioeconomic development as to become a beacon for other needy nations to seek to emulate a good governance practices which have qualified her for a share in the accounts.”
John Kufuor
President of Ghana
August 1, 2006
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The Newsletter of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
