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Press Release

MCC CEO Joins Condoleezza Rice to Highlight 15 Years of Agency Success

For Immediate Release

February 28, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 27, 2020 – In 2004, the George W. Bush Administration took a bold, new approach to international development by creating the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Today, MCC CEO Sean Cairncross sat down with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—a key leader in founding MCC—to discuss how the agency has reimagined a global impact model that pushes the envelope in finding the best ways to deliver U.S. foreign assistance.

Speaking to an audience of academic professionals, business leaders, and students at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution in California, CEO Cairncross and Secretary Rice highlighted the successes and lessons learned from MCC’s development model over the years. MCC’s model insists upon data-driven investments, country ownership, and policy reform in order to produce sustainable economic growth. The discussion underscored MCC’s importance in its partner countries’ development by consolidating key democratic and free-market reforms to maximize impact, ensure sustainability, and ready partner economies for private capital flow.

“I’m honored to join Condoleezza Rice to discuss MCC’s accomplishments and share my vision for the agency’s future. The Secretary’s leadership guided the design of our unique model which has improved the lives of millions of people around the world, and furthered the economic and security goals of the United States,” said MCC CEO Sean Cairncross. “We have shown that development can be done differently. By focusing on accountability, good governance, and smart risk, the Trump Administration through MCC continues to produce results for the American people by effectively delivering on its mission of reducing poverty through economic growth.”

“One of the values of MCC is that the projects are actually pretty basic to improving people’s lives,” said Condoleezza Rice.  “I’m really pleased that MCC has formalized now women’s empowerment as a part of what it is doing. In a day when we need examples of America’s ability to be steady and long-term in its thinking, I think MCC is a very good example.”

A recording of the event is available on MCC’s Youtube Page.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation is an independent U.S. Government agency working to reduce global poverty through economic growth. Created in 2004, MCC provides time-limited grants and assistance to poor countries that meet rigorous standards for good governance, from fighting corruption to respecting democratic rights.

To date, MCC has signed 37 compacts with 29 countries worth more than $13 billion. About 65 percent of the compact portfolio is invested in Africa, with the rest in Asia, Central America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

Learn more about MCC at www.mcc.gov.

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The Millennium Challenge Corporation is an independent U.S. Government agency working to reduce global poverty through economic growth. Created in 2004, MCC provides time-limited grants and assistance to poor countries that meet rigorous standards for good governance, from fighting corruption to respecting democratic rights. Learn more about MCC at www.mcc.gov.