Leveraging Resources to Maximize Impact
By Ambassador John Danilovich, Chief Executive Officer
Today, MCC welcomed former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to our Washington headquarters to commemorate an important milestone that helps us accomplish our mission to reduce poverty and improve the lives of our friends and partners in Africa. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with AGRA will allow our organizations to achieve more at a time when food security issues are a top priority in the fight against poverty. Mr. Annan and I agree that implementing long-term, country-based solutions to foster agricultural growth is key to reversing the current food crisis in a sustainable way. By joining forces on this front, we are helping to deepen the commitment to the work already underway in our partner countries, from reforming agricultural sectors to investing in fundamental rural infrastructure. I invite you to learn more about what our local partners and experts agree are closely linked aspects of food security and poverty reduction that demand our attention.
Mr. Annan’s cooperation with MCC, and his words of encouragement for MCC’s mission, are the latest in a growing chorus of support for the results we are seeing on the ground. President Bush, a bipartisan group of Senators, and groups like the Center for Global Development, InterAction, Freedom House, and the U.S. Global Leadership Council have been sending a clear message of support to Congress over the past few weeks. As CEO of an agency helping to change the conversation about the way the U.S. can help address poverty, I am encouraged to see support from the many champions of those who live on less than $2 a day. We agree with them that poverty isn’t political-it’s about policy, not politics.
The various memoranda of understanding MCC has signed recently are much more than mere paper or policy declarations. We are seeking ways to leverage the resources of those in the private sector (such as GE and Microsoft), of those with in-depth, on-the-ground knowledge in places like Africa (as is the case with DfID and AGRA), and of those who can help us find a diverse, talented workforce (as with the Phelps-Stokes Fund) in order to achieve our goals. I have asked that each of these memoranda of understanding be available to the public on our website so that you can see how MCC works to augment U.S. taxpayer money with additional initiatives. Only by engaging and working together with groups like these can we prevent duplication, improve the impact of each kilometer of road or irrigation, and help our partners attract long-term growth opportunities. MCC is just one tool in the toolbox to help address global poverty. We can accomplish much more by working together, and I welcome your input to help identify those working relationships that will help us achieve these goals.
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:13 am
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the MCC with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) should be applauded as the type of smart partnership which connects coordinated development research with project implementation and results. Both organizations strive to stimulate rural development to foster economic growth, protect the environment and alleviate poverty and hunger in a sustainable fashion. AGRA’s current programs to develop improved seed varieties, provide agricultural education and improve the health of Africa’s soils complement MCC Compacts focused on infrastructure (including transportation and irrigation), land tenure systems and access to credit.
AGRA and the MCC have already demonstrated their commitment to African agriculture with investments of $330m and $1.7b respectively. This collaboration will reinforce such efforts to date as well as leverage research and best practices in order to rapidly close the infrastructure gap and jump start productivity with provision of improved crop varieties and technical training to small-scale farmers. Ghana, Madagascar, and Mali will be the first three countries to put into effect this alliance through the local accountable entities.
This MOU could prove to be an innovative solution to reverse the trend of declining funding for international agricultural research institutions through pairing public and private institutions with complementary missions. Let’s hope that putting the meat on the bones of this agreement not only helps to flesh out policies on paper but more importantly expands the diets of and opportunities for hungry and poor Africans.