Program implementers should be identified and selected based on the expertise and experience needed to translate complex programmatic details and due diligence analyses into well-targeted and effective activities. During early phases of implementation, MCC and MCA-Malawi sought to distill an extensive set of recommendations from due diligence assessments into succinct objectives. For the ENRM Activity, this due diligence used extensive modeling and land-use change projections to highlight the erosion hotspots as well as to craft several priority interventions tailored to local needs to reverse land-use trends. For the Social and Gender Enhancement Fund Activity, this entailed a robust social and gender assessment of relevant communities to inform project design. In addition, the grant selection process emphasized that proposals would be evaluated against the appropriateness of the intervention relative to the grant facility objectives, while also rating the capacity of applicants to implement their programs. Although the proposed interventions and locations aligned well with MCC’s due diligence recommendations, grantees had varying levels of experience in implementing key activities, and the high level of effort required for MCA-Malawi to conduct oversight and capacity building ultimately limited its ability to support effective implementation. MCC is addressing this lesson by convening discussions across the agency to undertake a holistic review of experiences with administering grant facilities within its compacts, taking the challenges noted above into consideration.
Lesson Learned