WASHINGTON (March 11, 2024) – The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 includes a $937 million request for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to reduce poverty through inclusive economic growth in developing countries. The request, submitted to Congress on March 11, 2024, by the Biden-Harris Administration, also includes at least $200 million in mandatory appropriations from the International Infrastructure Fund—part of a broader proposal to out-compete China globally – and legislative changes that would redefine MCC’s candidate country pool to apply MCC’s impactful model in a broader range of places. MCC’s FY 2025 Budget request supports:
- Program Development in nine countries, including new and ongoing work to develop threshold programs in Mauritania, Tanzania and the Philippines; compact programs in The Gambia, Togo and Zambia; regional compacts in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Cabo Verde; and initial development costs of new compact and threshold program selections to be made by MCC’s Board of Directors in December 2024.
- Program Oversight of Implementing Programs. MCC maintains a rigorous oversight model, projected to be across 17 implementing programs in FY 2025, including compact and threshold program reviews, portfolio management, activity modifications, and the suspension or termination of programs, projects, or activities when deemed appropriate.
- Candidate country pool reform. Redefining MCC’s candidate country pool to include countries below the World Bank’s threshold for starting graduation from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development line (the IBRD line) would apply MCC’s impactful model in a broader range of places, a model that contrasts with competitors. Additionally, it would supercharge the MCC effect, which incentivizes good governance reforms in countries before a single program dollar is spent as countries adopt reforms to pass the MCC scorecard.
- Selection and Economic Analysis. MCC administers a competitive selection process, whereby countries selected by MCC’s Board of Directors as compact-eligible must pass MCC’s scorecard of 20 independent, third-party indicators that measure a country’s policy performance in the areas of ruling justly, economic freedom, and investing in people. MCC administrative funds include funding for staffing and administering economic and constraints analyses.
- Evidence, Monitoring and Evaluation. MCC has an evidence-based approach to developing projects and assessing impacts, including publishing MCC Evaluation Briefs and Star Reports, and consistently earns top rankings for the agency’s commitment to transparency and evidence. These reports consolidate critical programmatic information throughout the lifecycle of each compact and threshold program to draw on the lessons learned in areas such as performance, sustainability, and other best practices.
- Program Acceleration. MCC continues to accelerate and streamline compact and threshold development processes to leverage efficiencies, reduce timelines, and achieve impacts sooner while maintaining quality.
Amidst today’s geopolitical and social landscape, MCC’s grant assistance is a key economic contributor to the way the United States combats growing challenges and incentivizes good governance and democratic values globally. In FY 2025, MCC will build on twenty years of program impact – from large-scale infrastructure, agriculture, water and legal reforms empowering those who have been marginalized, to creating new markets for trade, investment, jobs, and opportunities for American businesses. Since MCC’s founding in 2004, the agency has delivered nearly $17 billion in aid to 47 low-income and lower-middle-income countries across six continents, with programs lifting more than 380 million people out of poverty.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation is an independent U.S. government development agency working to reduce global poverty through economic growth. Created in 2004, MCC provides time-limited grants that pair investments in infrastructure with policy and institutional reforms to countries that meet rigorous standards for good governance, fighting corruption and respecting democratic rights.