Posted on October 5, 2012 by By Sheila Herrling, Vice President for Policy and Evaluation
On Monday, I joined U.S. Government colleagues—Gayle Smith of the White House, Don Steinberg of USAID and Rob Goldberg of State Department—at the launch of the 2012 Aid Transparency Index. The Transparency Index, published annually by Publish What You Fund, rates aid organizations on how transparently they do business. This year, MCC was named the ninth-most transparent organization out of 72 globally, and the most transparent U.S. Government agency.
Of course, we are proud of our individual ranking. But we are more proud of being part of an administration that is so firmly committed to transparency. We are proud to be part of an interagency team collectively striving to bring more sunlight to our foreign assistance. The Foreign Assistance Dashboard is a huge step forward for the U.S. Government—just a few years ago it was next to impossible to know what the United States was spending, where and on what. We are proud to be the first agency to publish obligation and expenditure data to the Dashboard. The release last week of the OMB Bulletin is another big step for the U.S. Government, as it brings other agencies into the Dashboard.
But we want to do so much more. MCC has our sights on two ways to push our transparency efforts beyond “show me the money” to “show me the evidence.” Two efforts are central to MCC’s evidence-based approach—putting more data in the public domain and bringing transparency to what we are learning.
First, more data. This week, we launched our Open Data Catalog, data.mcc.gov, which will over time become our one-stop shop for financial, performance and evaluation data. This is about exposing the data and evidence that MCC uses to make decisions and measure results and putting it in the hands of smart people to use it in new ways. Our first step was to put out MCC’s Fiscal Year 2012 selection data in XML format. Check back soon for FY13 selection data, financial data, program performance data, and a goldmine of household survey data that underlies our independent evaluation work.
Second, more transparent learning. MCC is pushing transparency beyond money and data to learning about what we are actually achieving. MCC has made a big commitment to independent evaluations to help us test assumptions about traditional approaches, and build better evidence for what works—and what doesn’t—in development. Our first impact evaluations will be final later this month, and we’ll make all the findings public. The learning distilled from these rigorous independent evaluations is enormous, for us and for others.
We look forward to you standing with MCC as we take transparency to the next level, even when the evidence points to things not going as we expected. That is often the greatest motivator for change. It is central to accountability and open government and is at the heart of MCC’s evidence-based approach.
Posted on October 2, 2012 by Patrick Fine, Vice President, Department of Compact Operations
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Two weeks ago, MCC was delighted to host a delegation from the Government of Indonesia (GOI) for the signing of a Project Implementation Agreement (PIA), the document that sets out the operational details for implementing MCC’s compact with Indonesia. The compact focuses on investments in renewable energy and sustainable natural resource use, maternal and child nutrition, and public procurement modernization.
The Indonesian delegation was led by Pak Lukita Tuwo, who is the Vice Minister of the Planning Ministry and GOI’s principal representative for the MCC compact. Pak Lukita was accompanied by members of his staff, including Ibu Emmy, the head of the Ministry’s legal bureau, and Pak Kennedy, its director for bilateral foreign funding.
We were also pleased to be joined by Pak Dino Djalal, Indonesia’s Ambassador to the United States, and Ambassador Djani, who is the head of North American and European Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Djani was in Washington for the semi-annual meeting of the U.S.-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership, where Secretary of State Clinton and Foreign Minister Natalegawa announced the signing of the PIA.
The signing, which took place in MCC’s Washington office, was marked by a sense of celebration and anticipation: MCC and GOI expect the compact to enter into force within the next few months. The PIA sets out the terms for the new Millennium Challenge Account – Indonesia (MCA-I), the first institution of its kind in the country and one that we hope will provide a path-breaking model for other development projects in Indonesia.
We’re also seeing other signs of progress as we move toward entry into force: the first meeting of the MCA-I Board of Trustees, the approval of the first disbursement request for funds, and the signing of five major contracts. I’m proud of what the MCC and GOI teams are doing to move this exciting program forward. Expectations are high, especially among the Indonesian people in the provinces, where many of the compact activities will be implemented.
While much hard work and many challenges lie ahead, we’re already seeing the power of partnership and are confident that the compact will not only improve lives of Indonesians, but strengthen the ties between our two nations.
Posted on September 21, 2012 by Alicia Phillips Mandaville, Managing Director of Development Policy
MCC was pleased to co-host an event this week with Freedom House and the Open Society Institute on the role of democratic accountability in development assistance. After opening remarks from MCC CEO Daniel W. Yohannes and Freedom House President David J. Kramer, foreign policy expert Mort Halperin moderated a panel discussion on the topic. Brian Atwood, chairman of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee, gave thoughtful closing remarks.
This is an area I have always been interested in, so I certainly enjoyed an afternoon’s worth of discussion. What was most interesting to me is how much convergence of beliefs there is between those interested in accountability and country ownership from an aid effectiveness perspective and those interested in accountability from a democratic institutional perspective—but this convergence is often masked by different terminology.
When MCC sees a country partner go to the mat to complete a high-profile compact investment on time, we often describe this as the country’s commitment to results. Some of our stakeholders see it as proof of country ownership, since it shows the government is fully vested in the outcome of the work (especially if there are difficult political decisions or additional funds required). But there are enough anecdotes to suggest that a big part of a government’s decision to go the extra mile is that governments know their citizens can see if the project is finished or not—and a realization that they may bear the popular blame if the project isn’t complete. For those watching democratic institutions, that’s pretty akin to democratic accountability.
No matter what we call it, everyone agrees it’s a good outcome. And its part and parcel of how MCC sees the links between democratic governance and sound development outcomes.
Next week at the U.N. General Assembly—where the theme is good governance—there will be a number of events (including ours) focused on the importance of good governance. Here’s to continued realization that we are covering a lot of the same ground from both the aid effectiveness and democratic accountability perspectives.
Posted on September 11, 2012 by D. Chuluuntsetseg, MCA-Mongolia, and Ch. Tserenkhand, The Asia Foundation
Last year, Millennium Challenge Account-Mongolia and The Asia Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding that brings the latest medical and technical information to Mongolia’s future doctors, engineers, computer programmers, and other skilled workers.
Under the agreement, the foundation’s Books for Asia program delivered 10,000 new technical, vocational and medical books, CDs and DVDs to students and health centers benefitting from MCC's five-year, $285 million compact with Mongolia.
Many publishers generously contributed to the initiative, including McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, Oxford University Press, W.W. Norton & Company, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Books of Discovery, and Island Press.
Highly motivated teachers and students put the books to practical use. Ms. Dorjderem, an assistant teacher of English at the School of Health Technology, currently uses Hole's Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology-Laboratory Manual to prepare class lectures. She also uses Medical Language for Modern Health Care in her classes to improve her students’ medical English proficiency.
Dorjderem also established the school’s first English reading club, using donated books. The club has become a popular place among teachers, students and nurses to improve their English, teaching and learning skills.
One student, B. Banzragch, significantly improved his English skills and was able to enroll in a course at a Japanese university.
“The books from America helped me a lot in gaining knowledge and language skills to achieve my goals,” he said. “These books are really wonderful in terms of giving systemic knowledge and are well-designed and very user-friendly.”
As the legendary Mongolian poet, D. Natsagdorj said, “books are windows to the world.”
Posted on August 24, 2012 by Oliver Pierson, Resident Country Director
MCC and our counterparts at MCA-Namibia are proud to see that Namibia has been chosen to host the 10th Adventure Travel World Summit (ATWS) taking place in October 2013. The ATWS will draw around 600 delegates and many of the biggest players in the adventure travel tourism industry to Namibia to discuss industry best practices and collaborate on issues facing adventure travel.
MCA-Namibia provided support to the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism in developing Namibia’s bid to host the summit. The MCC-funded tourism project in Namibia, part of the country’s overall $304.5 million compact, is focused around encouraging private investment in the tourism industry, supporting communal conservancies to establish and manage tourism enterprises, and broadening the marketing of Namibia as a tourist destination.
MCC has also worked toward increasing the capacity of Namibia’s tourism industry and improving its management by funding training courses toward the certification of Namibian tour guides. The training courses create new jobs in the sector and work to promote a skilled and educated labor force to cater to the needs of a growing tourist industry. Tourism, already Namibia’s second-most lucrative industry, has the potential to be a strong source of economic growth, helping create more jobs and reduce poverty.
The selection of Namibia, the first African country to host the ATWS, will highlight Namibia’s tourism industry and ideally foster opportunities to build on MCC-funded work in this key sector and drive new private sector investments in tourism.
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