The Millennium Challenge Corporation has made significant strides in its first two decades, but now as it confronts existential challenges, the question arises: How can the aid agency adapt and remain relevant in an evolving global development landscape?
Since its inception, MCC, a U.S. development agency, has invested nearly $17 billion in 47 countries. It operates through a unique model, selecting partner nations based on a rigorous set of policy criteria, and then co-designing transformative, large-scale grant agreements to tackle critical barriers to economic growth.
These grants, termed compacts, are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and their allocation hinges on MCC’s scorecard — a thorough measurement of factors such as corruption, political rights, civil liberties, fiscal policy, health spending, employment opportunity, land rights, and gender.