WASHINGTON, D.C., December 6, 2017 – The U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) today showed the largest gains among all federal agencies for which data is available in the Partnership for Public Service’s 2017 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings, jumping 13.8 points.
The rankings capture the opinions of nearly 500,000 civil servants across 200 federal agencies on a range of workplace topics.
“In recent years, we have prioritized increasing employee engagement and doubled down on efficiently and effectively increasing our impact in the fight against poverty,” MCC Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Nash said following the release of the report. “I’m thrilled that the results of those efforts are paying dividends, as demonstrated by MCC’s significant improvement in these rankings and the results of our Employee Viewpoint Survey.”
Beginning in 2016, MCC launched an agency-wide internal reform effort, including implementing a more user-friendly performance management system, establishing an executive decision group to provide a transparent structure for strategic decision-making, prioritizing internal corporate communications, and clarifying MCC’s investment criteria. In the 2017 MCC Employee Viewpoint Survey, overall employee satisfaction increased by the largest amount since the agency’s founding in 2004. Improvements were recorded across all of the survey’s 71 questions.
MCC was also recognized this week for its leadership in monitoring, evaluation and learning in a new study by The Lugar Center and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network that examines the role evidence and learning play in promoting impactful foreign assistance programs.
Since its founding, MCC has required that all compact projects be evaluated by independent evaluators to concretely assess how a project’s activities reduced poverty and promoted economic growth. MCC’s commitment to evaluating its projects and learning from those evaluations has spread across the U.S. government.
The study praised MCC’s model of including local stakeholders and partner governments as a part of the official review process prior to evaluation completion.
MCC recently hired its first director of results and learning, began publishing an evaluation newsletter, and posts its program evaluations online in an evaluation catalogue. MCC makes every effort to make its data public and accessible, and has been recognized as an international leader in transparency, ranking first in Results for America’s Federal Invest in What Works Index for the last two years in a row.
MCC works to improve lives and transform communities around the world by focusing on one mission: reducing poverty through economic growth. MCC’s time-limited grant investments promote growth and create more stable, secure countries with new business opportunities abroad.
Learn more about MCC’s approach to monitoring and evaluation. For additional information, contact us at press@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.