Millennium Challenge Corp. Adds 3 Countries for FY07 Funding

On November 9, the MCC Board added 3 new countries -- Jordan, Ukraine and Moldova -- to the existing group of 22 countries eligible to apply for funding in FY2007. Our predictions weren't too far off and, where our predictions did not come true (like Indonesia ), we were pleased.The three additions are not surprising -- they all passed the indicators test -- but the Jordan selection was not, in our view, the best choice for the next scarce development dollar.FY2007 is going to be an interesting year for the MCA program. There are now 25 countries eligible for MCA funding, 11 of which already have approved compacts totalling $3 billion. Assuming the MCC receives a $2 billion FY2007 appropriation, it will have $3.3 billion available to fund compacts from the remaining 14 countries. Now, clearly all 14 countries will not complete compacts in FY2007, but the MCC remains between a rock and a hard place with increased efficiency in the compact proposal process, a greater number of eligible countries, larger compacts, and less money than originally envisioned .My sense is that the MCC needs to be much more selective at the country eligibility phase -- much harder to do at this point -- or risk bringing more countries to the finish line than it has money to fund. Greater selectivity at the eligibilty phase would also allow staff to be more concentrated on working a smaller set of countries through the proposal process and focused more on the hard work of implementation and monitoring and evaluation which, in the end, is going to be the determining factor on how innovative the MCC really is.What do you think?