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Date: | Tue, 23 May 2006 09:53:08 -0400 |
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This is not good news for the 1.36 million Gambians who struggle every
day to make ends meet. I hope and pray that Banjul is in the loop.
Malanding
MCA Monitor Blog
« The Numbers are In -- House Approps Marks the MCC at $2b.
<http://blogs.cgdev.org/mca-monitor/archives/2006/05/the_numbers_are.php>
| Main <http://blogs.cgdev.org/mca-monitor/>
May 22, 2006
Just Say No to The Gambia
Rumor has it that the MCC Board is deliberating whether or not to
suspend The Gambia's eligibility for MCA assistance. Well, it's about
time...and could distinguish the MCC from other foreign aid agencies by
its ability to cut off partners for bad behavior.
A few points to inform decisionmaking: Just days after the MCC grants
The Gambia elgibility, President Jammeh jails three opposition leaders
without substantive grounds. The staff and offices of the opposition
paper, The Independent, are consistently threatened. If you speak out
against the Administration, you could die.
<http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=12239> Fiscal policy is on a
downward trend, most notably high extra-budgetary spending which will
only get worse as the country heads into the general election. Is that
the kind of country people have in mind when they think of the selective
group of "poor but well governed" countries allied with the MCC?
Seems ample grounds for the Board to exercise its discretion and
suspend. But, perhaps in a program where decisionmaking is based
primarily on a set of monitorable performance indicators, it was wise
for the MCC to wait for enough indicators to slip to support a decision
to suspend. We looked at the most recent and publicly available data on
the 16 performance indicators
<http://www.mcc.gov/countries/selection/short_descriptions.shtml>to see
if they could help support a decision to suspend. (Freedom House's 2006
report is out; <http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/> other
updated data is available; some is not.) Looks like policy slippage
<http://www.cgdev.org/doc/blog/gambiachart.pdf> (and the likelihood of
further policy slippage is quite good):
It's a no-brainer to me. The Gambia does not deserve to maintain its
eligibilty status, and certainly should not be held up as a model
reformer for the other countries striving for MCC eligibility. If the
Board does not suspend, there is no longer a question of what agency
runs the MCC show. If only Nike held a seat on the Board -- Just Do It!
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