MCC Approves Benin Compact, With a Democracy Condition

Yesterday, the MCC Board of Directors approved a five-year approximately $307 million Compact with Benin, more than half of which goes to revamping the Port of Cotonou. On the heels of the MCC's experience with approving Armenia's compact amid what still look like slippages in "ruly justly" criteria, MCC CEO Danilovich appears to place conditions on the Benin approval:

"The upcoming election is a significant milestone in Benin's history and continued participation in the MCC program requires that a successful election be held on the agreed date and according to the terms of Benin's constitution.”

It looks to me like it's more of a stick than the Armenia case was. And, depending on how the MCC defines "continued participation in the MCC program," it looks an awful lot like classic foreign aid conditionality. Some folks are clamoring that conditinality like this flies in the face of the MCC's "country ownership" principles. I don't agree. I see this as a positive signal that the MCC is reinforcing the principles it was founded on and upon which it determines country eligibility into this select program. That said, with the Armenia case, this Benin case and a recent article noting that The Gambia process was being put on hold, I think it's time for the MCC to introduce a hard democracy hurdle into its selection criteria to ensure greater consistency in the decisionmaking process.