The Millennium Challenge Corporation is committed to development, poverty reduction, and economic growth in the Americas. In this region, MCC has 5-year compacts with El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, totaling more than $850 million. MCC also has 2-year threshold programs with Paraguay, Guyana, and Peru, totaling an additional $77 million.

MCC investments are having a broad impact by:

• Promoting trade and private enterprise investment.
• Deepening democracy by requiring countries to demonstrate performace in policy areas including political rights, civil liberties, and voice and accountability.
• Promoting a productive discussion between civil society, the private sector, NGOs and government entities in the overall design and monitoring of MCC projects.
  

Fast Facts

• MCC is currently working with countries in both Central and South America.
• MCC has signed 3 compacts with Latin American countries: El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua totaling $850 million.
• MCC has signed threshold agreements with Guyana and Paraguay totaling over $41 million. The MCC Board has approved Peru’s $35.6 million Threshold Program which will be signed in early 2008.

El Salvador

In El Salvador, the five-year, $461 million Compact will improve the lives of Salvadorans through strategic investments in education, public services, enterprise development, and transportation infrastructure. The Compact is highlighted by a Human Development project designed to increase employment opportunities for the region’s poorest inhabitants and provide greater access to safe water and sanitation services. The Productive Development Project will assist the development of profitable and sustainable business ventures with a primary focus on poor farmers. The Transportation Project will fund road infrastructure improvements to increase access to markets, lower transportation costs, and provide increased economic opportunities.

Honduras

The five-year Compact with Honduras aims to reduce poverty by increasing agricultural productivity and decreasing transportation costs. MCC’s $215 million investment will develop the productivity and business skills of farmers who operate small and medium size farms and their employees and reduce transportation costs between targeted production centers and national, regional and global markets.
The Rural Development Project will result in higher incomes for the farmers, their employees, and their communities. The Transportation Project will enable farmers and other businesses to get their products to market more efficiently, rural Hondurans to get to work and access social services, and children to get to school.

Nicaragua

The five-year Compact with Nicaragua will provide $175 million to reduce transportation costs, improve access to markets, strengthen property rights, increase investment, and raise incomes for farms and rural businesses in the Leon and Chinandega region.
The Compact will improve property records of land parcels and create a modern system of parcel maps and registered land titles, making property rights more secure and lowering the cost of doing business in the region. Transportation projects will upgrade a stretch of the Pacific Corridor highway to better link producers in the northwest to commercial centers in Managua, Honduras, and El Salvador. Upgrades to rural secondary roads will improve community access to markets and social services.

Guyana

MCC’s two-year, $6.7 million Threshold Program with Guyana seeks to improve Guyana’s performance on MCC’s Fiscal Policy indicator. Specifically, the grant will help the Government of Guyana implement its new value-added tax (VAT) system and develop ways to assist and educate taxpayers, while at the same time helping the government better plan and control spending. Additionally, the grant will help reduce the number of days and costs associated with starting a business by modernizing and streamlining the business registration process.

Paraguay

Paraguay signed a $34.65 million Millennium Challenge Corporation Threshold program to initiate a multi-sectoral attack on corruption and create conditions conducive to economic growth and business development in Paraguay. By helping Paraguay improve its tax collection rates, prevent smuggling, and decrease the time required to start a business, MCC is helping to improve the business and investment environment in the country.

Peru

The two-year $35.6 million Peru Threshold Program seeks to increase immunization rates of rural
children against diseases such as measles, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus in eight targeted regions
and assist Peru’s Ministry of Health in strengthening information and vaccination management systems.
The program will also help Peru combat corruption by working with the judicial branch, law enforcement, the ombudsman and controller’s offices and civil society organizations to improve internal controls, as well as analyze and simplify administrative processes to reduce opportunities for corruption.