At its quarterly meeting, the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Board of Directors received a briefing on improvements to the agency’s compact development process and discussed MCC’s approach to climate change.
During the meeting, the Board also received updates on MCC’s portfolio of compacts and threshold programs worldwide.
The Board discussed MCC's efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of MCC’s compact development process. Building upon lessons learned during a decade of compact development and implementation, MCC has identified a series of actions to improve timeliness, clarify expectations and increase accountability while simultaneously maintaining, and even enhancing, overall quality.
The steps MCC is taking to improve the compact development process include: enhanced early engagement with newly selected compact eligible countries, expedited MCC staffing and resource allocation once a country is selected to develop a compact, streamlining and expediting analytical studies, adding two new management decision points in the compact development process, systematizing technical reviews, and improving internal and external guidance on the compact development process.
MCC has begun implementing these actions with the three newly selected compact-eligible countries—Mongolia, Nepal and the Philippines—and will be applying them as appropriate to other countries currently developing compacts.
MCC also briefed the Board on MCC’s approach to addressing climate change and highlighted a number of project examples. President Obama's Executive Order on Climate Resilient International Development and MCC’s environmental and social policies direct MCC to integrate climate change considerations into our strategies, plans and projects.
The Board learned how MCC integrates climate change considerations into its programs in two ways. The first is through adaptation, or designing projects so that they are resilient in the face of a changing climate. The second is through mitigation, or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. MCC has invested well over $800 million in projects that adapt to climate change and/or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Going forward, MCC will systematically consider climate change risks and opportunities and take them into account in its investments as appropriate. MCC will also screen for adaptation risks, using tools developed as part of a USG-wide initiative under the Executive Order and will continue to collaborate with other USG agencies and our partner countries to improve operational effectiveness.