Millennium Challenge Corporation Releases Annual Report

Report Highlights Beneficiaries of MCC Programs

Washington, DC – The Millennium Challenge Corporation today released its latest Annual Report summarizing the progress achieved through December 31, 2006, and highlighting the impact of its assistance programs in some of the world’s poorest countries.

“This report chronicles the beginnings of tangible outcomes and results in the field,” said MCC CEO John J. Danilovich. “We are able to document that lives are starting to experience transformational change through the implementation of MCC programs.”

In explaining MCC’s history, organizational structure and mission, which is to reduce poverty through economic growth, the 2006 Annual Report compiles success stories and focuses on the beneficiaries of MCC Compacts and Threshold programs. For instance, the report documents how MCC Compacts are improving the lives of the poor by:

Benefiting 75 percent of Armenia’s one million-plus rural poor by increasing their annual incomes;
Upgrading transportation infrastructure and increasing the income of more than 65,000 of the poor in Vanuatu;
Increasing the incomes of more than 125,000 of the poor in Cape Verde through private sector-led growth;
Assisting five million people in Benin by increasing access to land, financial services, justice, and markets;
Impacting nearly 1.5 million people in Georgia by creating new jobs in rural regions;
Increasing incomes of rural farmers and entrepreneurs in Nicaragua;
Increasing the incomes of thousands of farmers in Honduras by transitioning to higher-profit crops;

Raising household incomes of the poorest farmers in Madagascar by focusing on property rights, the financial sector, and agricultural business investment;
Improving the standard of living in Mali through greater access to education, health services, and markets;
Alleviating poverty in Ghana by raising farmer income through private-sector led agribusiness development; and
Investing in education, public services, agricultural production, rural business development, and transportation infrastructure to help the poor in El Salvador.

As a reference guide, the report provides specific information on each of MCC’s Compacts and Threshold programs approved through the end of 2006, a timeline of major developments, the status of all MCC countries, and the financial audit and comments.

The full report is available online at www.mcc.gov. For a printed version, email info@mcc.gov or call 202-521-3850.