Liberia, under the leadership of President George M. Weah, has once again suffered a major setback, despite its commendable performance on the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) 2024 Scorecard.
The country, fighting to build and strengthen its resilience and progress on various socio-economic fronts, unfortunately failed to secure a new compact from the MCC, after being snubbed by the Board of the MCC.
The Board of the MCC held its quarterly meeting on December 13, 2023, choosing Cape Verde, Tanzania, and the Philippines as the beneficiaries of the new compact, denying Liberia of receiving the compact.
The MCC is a US government initiative that rewards countries that demonstrate good governance and commitment to development, assesses nations based on their policy performance in sectors like economic freedom, ruling justly, and investing in people.
Furthermore, the scorecards play an important role in the competitive selection process to determine which countries are eligible to establish a five-year grant agreement known as a compact.
Liberia’s high score in the 2024 Scorecard reflects its efforts towards improvement in a number of indicators, but additional criteria may have influenced the MCC Board’s decision to deny Liberia the new compact, like was done in 2022.
It can be recalled that in the MCC 2024 fiscal year report, the country’s performance exceeded expectations by passing 14 of the 20 indicators, first of its kind in the history of Liberia.
The 14 indicators encompassed various aspects, including fiscal policy, inflation, political rights, civil liberties, control of corruption, trade policy, rule of law, freedom of information, gender in the economy, land rights and access, health expenditures, access to credit, employment opportunities, and immunization rates.
These achievements marked a significant improvement compared to the previous year, where the country fell short in 11 indicators, with several of those successfully passed in 2023, ranging from “rule of law,” “trade policy,” “inflation,” “fiscal policy,” and “immunization rates”.
According to a FrontPage Africa report, U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, chairing the MCC’s Board, evaluated candidate countries for compact eligibility based on three statutorily mandated factors, ranging from policy performance, the potential to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth, and the availability of MCC funds.
The Board, during its quarterly meeting, selected Cape Verde as newly eligible to develop a compact for the purpose of regional economic integration, including Tanzania and the Philippines to develop threshold programs, which are smaller grant programs designed to support policy and institutional reforms that address economic growth constraints.
The MCC’s Chief Executive Officer, Alice Albright, said, “The Board’s selection of Cape Verde, the Philippines, and Tanzania, advances MCC’s mission to forge strong partnerships with countries that have demonstrated a commitment to democratic governance, investing in their people, and economic freedom.”
“We look forward to building on prior partnerships and working hand in hand with each country to advance prosperity for their people,” the release added.
The MCC’s Board selected former compact partner, Cape Verde, as eligible to develop a regional compact, in recognition of the country’s clear commitment to democratic governance and its significant development and poverty reduction challenges.
With this new partnership, MCC will support Cape Verde in generating economic growth through deeper integration with the West African region.
Newly threshold-eligible, the Philippines and Tanzania, are both former MCC compact partners that continue to face pressing development needs in strategic regions of the world.
In recent years, both the Philippines and Tanzania have demonstrated renewed commitments to advancing critical reforms to strengthen democratic governance, protect human rights, and fight corruption.
In recognition of these efforts, MCC’s Board selected the Philippines and Tanzania to partner with MCC in the development of threshold programs that focus on the policy and institutional reforms countries can undertake to reduce poverty and generate economic growth.
