In The Balance: Guidance versus Country Ownership in the MCA

Today ArmeniaLiberty.com, an arm of Radio Free Europe, featured a piece on Armenia's MCA compact proposal. The piece, Armenia Makes New Bid for Extra U.S. Aid reports that Armenia has submitted a $175 million proposal to the Millennium Challenge Corporation, "almost six months after its initial application was found to be unrealistic." The initial proposal was for $900 million. While this sum is clearly unrealistic given that it represents over a third of total MCA resources for 2004 and 2005, the size is not the most important point. The question is why did Armenia think it appropriate to submit a proposal for this sum? This gets to a key challenge for the MCA - to strike the right balance between fostering "country ownership" and offering guidance to eligible countries. Fostering country ownership means that countries get to set their own priorities for MCA funding. Guidance means that the MCA give the countries enough information so they don't waste their time "owning" a proposal that is unrealistic either because of size or program focus. The pendulum has swung wildly on Armenia. Let's hope the balance is easier to find on other countries' compact proposals.