Some 427,000 rural residents in Armenia — almost one-third of the country’s farming households — have benefited from a five-year compact with the Millennium Challenge Corp. that ended Sept. 29.
The compact, which was designed to reduce rural poverty by supporting strategic investments in irrigation infrastructure and agribusiness, is the largest grant investment in Armenia’s irrigation infrastructure in the past 30 years.
To sustain MCC’s investments beyond the compact, the program boosted the capacity of more than 45,000 farmers, water associations and the government. MCC’s investments attracted private sector spending to the industry as well.
MCC’s compact with Armenia also dealt with ’harmonization‘ and donor coordination to ensure the U.S. government agency’s investments are sustained and maximized. For instance, MCC’s innovative greenhouse construction known as “double-layer plastic” greenhouses encouraged other agencies such as the U.N. Development Program and World Vision to construct additional greenhouses.
The World Bank and Oxfam have also teamed up with other MCC initiatives in the southwestern Asian nation.
Read more:
Read more on U.S. aid reform online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.
