Fighting Cuts to the MCC
June 27th, 2008 at 1:12 pm | posted by ONE.Partners
At the end of May the Senate passed a bill to provide emergency aid for
Jordan, Burma, and food security - urgent humanitarian needs that our
government needs to address.
The problem:
The Senate funded the assistance by proposing to cut the budget of the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which invests in long-term poverty reduction, by 1/3. The U.S. has already promised MCC funding to several very poor countries, including the African nation of Burkina Faso, scheduled to sign a compact with the MCC in July. Since the news, the NGO community has been advocating hard against the proposed cuts.
The result:
Last week the proposed cuts were reduced from $525 million to $58 million by a conference of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Senate approved the bill last night and it is now up to the President to approve.
This month, I had the privilege of traveling to Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world. 80% of the population is rural, subsistence farmers. The women I met in Burkina Faso rely on small vegetable plots to feed their families and send their children to school. The MCC’s programs would help women have access to land, help girls go to school, and improve rural roads - key strategies for reducing poverty and increasing food security. I also met with (more…)
