The Millennium Challenge Corporation quietly released its annual scorecards assessing whether countries are eligible for hundreds of millions in U.S. funding last week — and they look quite different from last year. These changes loosen key criteria — notably on corruption — but it remains to be seen what their impact will be and how they will translate to what countries MCC chooses for new grants next month.
MCC, a U.S. development agency, operates through a unique model, selecting partner nations based on a rigorous set of policy criteria and then codesigning large-scale grant agreements to tackle barriers to economic growth.
These grants, called compacts, hinge on MCC’s scorecard, which measures factors such as government corruption, economic policy, land rights, health, and education spending.