December 4th, 2009 by Zack

The Center for Global Development recently rolled out its annual MCC selection paper detailing their predictions for which countries the Millennium Challenge Corporation will provide funding.  The report also addresses “MCC’s new approach to countries graduating from LIC (low income countries) to LMIC (lower middle income countries), the issue of second compacts, and the double demands of initiating new compacts and focusing on implementing current compacts well.” Ultimately, the report believes the MCC should select no new countries for threshold program eligibility this round.

While democracy is included as one of the indicators in the MCC selection process, the report argues that the MCC should take a firmer stance and not select countries that fail all three “democracy indicators,” even if their overall score would make them eligible. All three Middle Eastern countries considered in the report - Egypt, Jordan and Morocco - would fail to pass such a requirement.

Posted in Democracy Promotion, Egypt, Reform, US foreign policy |