Gender Policy
The Gender Policy is now available on MCC’s public web site.

On Jan. 11, 2007, at 3 p.m. MCC will host a gender policy public outreach event at its Washington, DC headquarters.

Ask the Expert
Ask Virginia Seitz, Director of Social and Gender Assessment, a question about the new MCC gender policy.  Should your question be chosen, it will appear with an answer in next month’s Millennium Challenge Monthly. Ask Virgnia a question.

Virginia Seitz
Director of Social and Gender Assessment
Virginia Seitz is Director of Social and Gender Assessment in the Environment and Social Assessment (ESA) division of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. As a member of the ESA team, she is responsible for assessing the potential impacts of projects proposed by Compact-eligible countries.  In addition, she is responsible for developing MCC’s gender integration strategy in order to incorporate gender impact monitoring into MCC’s guidance to eligible countries.  She also coordinates internal capacity-building in the area of gender and development.

Dr. Seitz has over twenty-five years experience in research, evaluation, training, program design and management, and has worked in over 20 countries with a focus on East and Southern Africa.  In addition to women/gender and development, she has worked in the areas of racial/ethnic/cultural diversity and equity; basic, vocational and non-formal education; child labor; impacts of HIV/AIDs; sustainable development, agriculture and natural resource management;  democratization, civil society and public participation; community economic development; and youth and development.

Prior to coming to MCC, Dr. Seitz was director of the Washington office of a private sector international development firm. She was also director of research for a national non-profit that developed a web-based participatory monitoring and evaluation tool for the field of community development. 

Dr. Seitz has a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning from Virginia Tech with a specialization in international development policy and planning, gender and development and participatory planning.  She has been a professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Sociology and Women’s Studies for three universities.  She has conducted and published research on gender and development and participatory planning.  She has also led field-based trainings on gender analysis, gender planning, and participatory assessment, and was director of USAID’s first Women in Development Fellows Program.

Notable Quotable
“I have come here to; first and foremost, thank Mr. President Bush for all the initiatives that have been taken so far to eradicate poverty on the continent. As you may know, among these initiatives, we have the agua initiative, empowerment of women, the fight against HIV/AIDS, and the initiative of MCA - that is Millennium Challenge Account. It is very important for us in Africa because the MCA will help us eradicate poverty. And I would like to thank President Bush for that last initiative he took.”

Thomas Yayi Boni, President of Benin
Remarks through translation
December 14, 2006
The Oval Office

Read a full transcript of remarks.

You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed via email to the Millennium Challenge Corporation listserv. This listserv is used to distribute event notifications and invitations, press releases, and this monthly email newsletter.

Please remove me from this list.

Millennium Challenge Corporation
875 Fifteenth Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
202-521-3600