Urge Congress to Reverse Cuts to Long-Term Assistance

A recent Senate amendment would pay for emergency international food and disaster assistance by cutting long-term aid through the millennium challenge corporation. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved a $193 billion war supplemental spending bill, which includes urgent funding for Burma cyclone relief, food security programs, and support for Jordan as it provides refuge to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees. The problem: two amendments in the bill pay for the $525 million cost of these programs by cutting this year’s entire budget of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) by one third. This leaves countries like Burkina Faso and Namibia in Africa—which are expecting to sign an agreement with the MCC in the next few weeks for projects which have been in the works for years—in limbo, impacting millions of the poorest people worldwide.

The Senate amendments are opposed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, several Senators, as well as the international aid community. The MCC, which invests in long-term economic, infrastructure and rural development and requires country governments to tackle corruption and govern democratically in order to qualify for full funding, is unique in that it has a long process of verifying that countries are qualified to receive assistance. More than half of the MCA funds already committed to different countries have addressed agriculture or rural investments.

Nora O’Connell, Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs at Women Thrive Worldwide, is just back from the West African nation of Burkina Faso, which has been in the pipeline since 2005 and is slated to sign a five year, $540 million compact in July. While there, she met with government officials who have been working on securing this funding for years and witnessed the success of its earlier programs. Burkina Faso It was the first country to sign a “threshold” agreement with the MCC to get smaller amounts of assistance to improve it’s standing, especially in areas like girls’ education. The Burkina government has committed over $ 5 million of its own money and significant staff time and has also carried out tough internal reforms as required by the MCC for projects to carry out land tenure and road projects as well as a possible extension of the successful girls’ education program.

“These programs would make a huge difference to the hundreds of women we met in rural areas in Burkina Faso, many of whom eat much less than three meals a day and eighty percent of whom are illiterate,” O’Connell said.