Challenging Foreign Aid: A Policymaker's Guide to the Millennium Challenge Account

In March 2002, President George W. Bush proposed establishing the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a new foreign aid program designed to provide substantial assistance to a select group of low-income countries that are committed to sound development policies. The MCA could bring about the most fundamental changes to US foreign assistance policy in 40 years.

In this study, Steven Radelet examines the MCA's potential promise and possible pitfalls. He offers a rigorous analysis of the MCA's central challenge: making foreign aid more effective in supporting economic growth and poverty reduction in the poor countries. He systematically explores what makes the MCA different and pinpoints the critical issues that will determine its success or failure.The book concludes with important recommendations about how the MCA should be strengthened to solidify its innovation and independence and to ensure coordination with other US foreign aid programs. Written at a practical level, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone seriously interested in the MCA and US foreign assistance policy.

Steven Radelet is an American economist working within the field of International Development. He holds the Donald F. McHenry Chair in Global Human Development and is also the Director of the Global Human Development Program (GHDP) at Georgetown University, a program of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia called Radelet "one of the leading development thinkers and practitioners in the world today." He has worked as an adviser to governments, in academia at Georgetown and Harvard University, and in senior-level U.S. government positions at USAID, the State Department and the Treasury. In addition to his experience as a practitioner, he has published and contributed to a number of books and articles in academic journals and fora.