The Other War: Global Poverty and the Millennium Challenge Account

(Paperback)

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In March 2002, President Bush announced the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a bilateral development fund representing an increase of $5 billion per year over current assistance levels, to promote growth in reform-oriented developing countries. This book considers the potential of the MCA as well as the larger content of US foreign assistance in which the MCA must find its place. While the MCA could create incentives for governments to improve economic policies and governance, and improve investment climates, it could also add to the confusion of overlapping foreign assistance agencies. The authors urge the administration to clearly define the MCA's role and to address the chronic tensions between foreign policy and development goals - tensions that have been made more difficult by concerns over terrorism and national security. In making recommendations on how to implement the MCA effectively, this book closely examines previous aid efforts, trends in the US budget for foreign assistance, the agencies currently involved in administering US development policy, and the ways in which congress can influence and determine aid outcomes.

Reviews

"[A]n insightful examination of the proposed Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)." C. Kilby, Vassar College, Choice, 12/1/2003

"This book...provides a detailed analysis of the MCA. In particular, it suggests how MCA may be fashioned as an effective tool to rebuild US development policy." Mak Arvin, Trent University, Ontario, Canada, Journal of Development Studies, 10/1/2003

"The authors discuss some important operational issues that shape the ability of the MCA to achieve its goals.... The central concern informing the authors' recommendations is to effect a shift in U.S. development assistance away from a top-down, donor-driven approach to one that supports, and even encourages, recipient countires to design and implement their own development plans." James Busumtwi-Sam, Simon Fraser University, International Journal, 1/1/2004

"The joint study by a multidisciplinary team of Brookings scholars offers an important in sight into how best to craft the MCA to make it an effective aid distributing and delivering mechanism that would both transform US policy on the poorest countries and enhance international poverty reduction efforts.... The Other War is one of the most important recent contributions to the study of development aid practices and a valuable guide for policy-makers."

Author Bio

Lael Brainard was vice president and director of the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, where she held the Bernard E. Schwartz Chair in International Economics. Brainard served as deputy national economic adviser in the Clinton administration. Carol Graham is a senior fellow in the Economic Studies program and codirector of the Center on Social and Economic Dynamics at the Brookings Institution. Nigel Purvis is a Brookings scholar on environment, development, and global issues. Steve Radelet is a former senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. He is currently senior adviser on development in the office of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gayle E. Smith is a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and formerly was senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council.