Congress Shows Frustration With Foreign-Aid Effort That Minimized Charity Role

The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal agency set up almost four years ago to reinvent foreign aid, has spent only $155-million of the $4.8-billion it has approved for five-year projects in 15 developing countries, a pace that has made it a target for a major budget cut in legislation pending in the House and Senate, reports The New York Times.

The Senate has further suggested that Congress provide no more than half of the money upfront for future five-year projects, putting many qualifying countries at risk of losing aid.

While American foreign aid is normally funneled through contractors and charities on a short-term basis, the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s goal was to support poor countries with good governance to conceive and carry out major undertakings themselves.

Sheila Herrling, of the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research group in Washington, says there are many valid reasons why the Millennium Challenge Corporation projects have been slow to get past the planning stages, citing the complexity of many of the projects as well as the need to monitor time-consuming but necessary accountability standards.

Nevertheless, “it shouldn’t have taken so long,” she said. “The agency needs to figure it out this year. They are part of the problem.”

John J. Danilovich, who has led the agency for two years, told the newspaper that the agency will reorganize with “laser focus” and that he recognized that “we need to do better, and we will do better.”

Countries threatened by the budget cut include the West African country Burkina Faso, which has gone to great lengths to fulfill agency requirements for good governance and will not receive aid if the Senate approves the plan. Burkina Faso’s prime minister, Tertius Zongo, expressed dismay. “We have done our part,” he said. “This is a partnership.”

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