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!



¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤