Members of Congress, the Administration, the private sector, NGOs and the diplomatic community will gather tonight to mark MCC’s first 10 years of driving change and delivering impact in the fight against global poverty. Senator Lindsey Graham and John Podesta will deliver remarks that are expected to touch on MCC’s contributions to U.S. development policy. So today is a fitting moment to reflect on how far MCC has come in 10 short years.
A decade ago, MCC’s founders embraced the challenge of changing the discipline of global development by adopting a new, business-minded approach. MCC was an experiment to test concepts that many agreed should define a different way for delivering development assistance. Terms like country selection, country ownership, impact evaluations, evidence-based or data-driven decision making, accountability, and transparency did not characterize the development landscape 10 years ago as they do today.
I believe MCC played a huge role in making that change possible.
What MCC has achieved over the last decade is proof that the experiment works, and MCC’s focused mission on poverty reduction through economic growth has real impact.
We see that impact today in how other development practitioners—both inside the U.S. Government and beyond—adopt our learning and best practices.
It is seen in the partnerships we have forged with countries around the world to help them achieve their development priorities, incentivize good governance, change the lives of their poor, and create measurable results for sustained economic growth that will ultimately end the need for assistance.
And it is also seen in MCC’s ongoing commitment to push our principles and practices even further as we look ahead. We want to explore new partnerships. We want to embrace the power of evidence, learning and data as stand alone forces for change. And we want to contribute to environments in developing countries for increased business investments, strong governance models and meaningful civil engagement.
The best way for MCC to honor our first decade of change and impact is by building on our fundamental values while embracing innovative and efficient ways to apply them toward ending global poverty. As we plan now for the next 10 years, that is exactly what we intend to do.