• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health
"The Millennium Challenge Account in Africa: Promise vs. Progress"
Opening Statement, Chairman Donald M. Payne
June 28, 2007

Good afternoon. Welcome to this hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on the Millennium Challenge Account in Africa.

In March of 2002, President Bush announced his plan to develop what he termed a new compact for global development. At that time he pledged to increase United States development assistance by $5 billion by 2006.

The Millennium Challenge Account was established in January of 2004 to carry out the President's vision. Today, three and a half years later, we are here to assess the achievements of the MCA in Africa.

If one examines the statistics related to Africa and the MCA, it appears that African countries are faring very well. To date, of the forty countries eligible for assistance world-wide, nineteen are in Africa. With the approval yesterday of compacts between the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the countries of Lesotho and Mozambique, seven countries in Africa have signed MCA compacts, representing over half of the thirteen agreements that have been signed thus far. The compacts African countries have signed are worth over $2 billion-more than sixty-percent of the $3 billion allocated towards compacts worldwide.

However, if we look beyond those figures, the progress has not been quite as dramatic. And I have two concerns. First is the slowness of the process.

According to the Government Accountability Office, it took an average of 633 days- or just under two years- for five African countries with compacts to develop and enter into those agreements with the MCC. The two additional countries whose compacts were just accepted had been compact eligible since 2004. There is still one African country that has been eligible for MCC funds since 2004, has yet to complete the agreement process.

And signing an agreement does not result in the immediate payout of funds. Madagascar, the first country to sign a compact with the MCC, has disbursed only $14.47 million of the $110 million contained in the two year-old agreement. The MCC had projected that by this point in time, over half of the $110 would be spent. In fact, only 23% of the disbursements the MCC planned to make in Africa by now have actually been made. And it is unclear to me that a significant portion of that money that has been released has been spent on programs rather than on administrative and or start-up costs.

My second concern is about continuing large levels of appropriations in the face of unexpended funds. Congress has provided approximately $6 billion to the Millennium Challenge Account, and there is another $1.8 billion provided in the fiscal year 2008 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that was approved by the House last week. Unfortunately a significant amount of that money remains unspent. And while I do believe that we need to give this new initiative a chance because of what it could mean to African countries, it is important that the MCC begin showing results.

Some might dismiss that concern as unfair because of the requirement for the MCC to have money on hand before it commits to fund compacts. This is a requirement Congress may need to re-examine unless the MCC can shorten the time frame between country selection and project implementation. Appropriations are a zero-sum game, and the sums currently available are not high. It is extremely difficult to support continued set-asides for an initiative that three-plus years into the process is not fully operational while at the same time under-resourcing other development assistance activities

Obviously we have a lot to talk about. I hope that during the course of their testimony, our witnesses will discuss not only the concrete results that have been achieved over the past three years, but also what Congress can expect to see over the next twelve to eighteen months in terms of results, and their suggestions for balancing the future benefits and promise of MCA projects with the very real need to adequately fund programs to address the pressing health and development needs facing Africa today.

With that I would like to turn to Mr. Smith for his opening remarks.