US-based Millennium Challenge picks Sri Lanka among others for financial support
View(s):WASHINGTON DC – The US- Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Board of Directors last week picked Sri Lanka and many other countries to provide support through its programmes. “Sri Lanka has embarked on a remarkable effort over the past year to reinvigorate its democratic institutions, improve governance, and restore protection of human rights,” MCC said in a media release.The Millennium Challenge Corporation is an innovative and independent U.S.Government agency working to reduce global poverty through economic growth.Created by the U.S.
ongress in January 2004, with strong bipartisan support, MCC provides time-limited grants and assistance to countries that demonstrate a commitment to good governance, investments in people and economic freedom, according to the statement. It said at the MCC board’s quarterly meeting on December 16, the board approved three countries as eligible for compacts and two countries as eligible for threshold programmes. “Three of the five countries are new partners for MCC and all have worked hard to improve their performance on MCC’s scorecard, which measures countries’ commitment to ruling justly, economic freedom, and investing in their people,” the release added.
The board selected Cote d’Ivoire, Kosovo and Senegal as newly eligible for compacts. Cote d’Ivoire, which was selected in December 2014 for a threshold programme, will now transition into the compact program after showing continued improvement on its scorecard and achieving greater political stability. Kosovo, which passed MCC’s scorecard for the first time after making progress on democratic rights, is a new partner for MCC. Senegal successfully completed its first MCC compact in September and demonstrated improved scorecard performance over the life of the partnership. The board also selected Togo and Sri Lanka to develop MCC threshold programs. Togo has shown a clear upward trajectory on overall scorecard performance over the past few years.Nepal, Niger and the Philippines were re-selected by the board to continue developing their compacts.