From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Tue Nov 24 2009 - 23:08:56 EST
- Foreign Policy Journal - http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com -
A Front Row Seat on Smart Development
Ken Hackett
Helping the world’s poor find their way to a prosperous and sustainable
future is not an exact science. There is no formula that will produce the
right answer. But this elusive goal is worth striving for.
This week I end five years on the Board of Directors of the Millennium
Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government agency charged with
attaining that goal. My time with MCC has shown me that this is an agency
making great strides in the right direction, forging a path that the entire
development community would do well to follow.
During my 40 years in this field, I have learned many of the lessons that
MCC is seeking to apply. You can’t just follow that popular bumper
sticker: Think Globally, Act Locally. You must think globally and think
locally, and then you must act in both venues.
What MCC knows is that development will never work if it is delivered from
outside as if we are surgeons arriving to remove a tumor. Development must
be driven from within a community, its policies and priorities homegrown.
But it will also not work absent an international commitment like that of
MCC. A global effort is necessary for local success.
Take corruption, a problem many development agencies ignore but that MCC
takes on. Corruption is an enemy of development, siphoning off funds meant
for the poor and creating an atmosphere of fatalistic cynicism, an
expectation of failure. Corruption exists on every level – locally,
nationally and internationally. It must be rooted out at every level.
MCC works to ensure that development dollars go to poor countries committed
to such fundamental policies: against corruption, for respecting the rule
of law and empowering women, investing in health and education, promoting
civil liberties, creating opportunities for meaningful work. It does this
not to punish recalcitrant countries, but because it knows that development
will not take place without the foundation of such policies.
Once that foundation is evident, countries must be in charge of their
development. If others do for these countries what they can do for
themselves, they will never develop the abilities and institutions they
need. The involvement of civil society – businesses, churches, community
organizations – must be nurtured to provide essential insight and
oversight. Such growth is difficult but necessary to ensure that we
eventually replace aid dollars with self-generating economic activity
MCC emphasizes accountability, not just counting the number of schools
constructed in poor communities, but finding out if students grow up to
increase their incomes and care for their families. The new development
model demands we think holistically of results.
Do not think that MCC arrived fully formed, ready to dispense such
development wisdom. It would not be an effective agency with that attitude.
I have had a front row seat as MCC dealt with different presidential
administrations and their cabinet members, different actors in the
development bureaucracy and in the private sector as the MCC has a unique
public-private leadership. All along, it adjusted its approaches to these
realities.
There were changes on the ground as well — coups in Madagascar and
Honduras, the suspension of The Gambia – that required adjustment. And
MCC receives an ongoing education as its theories are tested in poor
communities around the world. I watched and learned as valuable lessons
unfolded at every level.
It has been a challenge to sustain partnerships with countries trying to
practice sound policies, lead their own development and deliver results,
while demanding the highest standards of accountability. Learning to strike
the right balance between the need for results and the ability of countries
to ramp up their ability to act on their own initially tested—yet now
strengthens—the MCC model.
MCC is proving that finding this balance will pay dividends in improving
the lives of the world’s poor, making Americans proud of their investment
of tax dollars. Partner countries, to date, are investing more than $7
billion of MCC grants toward their homegrown development priorities.
If you want to see results, ask schoolgirls in Burkina Faso in MCC-funded
schools where an independent evaluation shows rising enrollment rates and
test scores. Ask farmers in Cape Verde who travel to markets on roads
rehabilitated with MCC funds. Ask the Virginia-based company that is
benefiting from a private-public partnership with El Salvador to connect
rural households to the electricity grid as part of an MCC-funded project.
As my tenure on MCC’s Board ends, the debate about reforming development
assistance continues. Those in that debate should learn from and embrace
MCC’s innovations in practicing smart development.
To learn more about how MCC is reducing poverty through economic growth
visit www.mcc.gov. [1]
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