*Topicality/Definitions Democracy Promotion Includes Military Intervention
*Political Conditionality Good/Effective*
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- Conditionality Effective at Democracy Promotion
*Political Conditionality Good/Effective*Current US Assistance Conditioned on Good GovernanceMCA INCREASES US DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE AND TIES IT TO GOOD GOVERNANCE CONDITIONALITY Wil Hout, Associate Professor World Development in the Hague, 2007, The Politics of Aid Selectivity: good governance criteria in World Bank, US and Dutch development assistance, p. 70 With around $19.7 billion allocated to Official Development Assistance (ODA), the United States was the world’s largest bilateral donor in 2004. As ODA was only 0.17 percent of its gross national income, the United States, in relative terms, was at the same time one of the least generous donors in the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2006a). On 14 March 2002, President Bush announced his plan for the so-called Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which aimed at a gradual increase of the US budget for development assistance and should result in additional spending of $5 billion a year as of FY 2006. In a speech to the Inter-American Development Bank, Bush called the MCA “a ‘new compact for development’ that increases accountability for rich and poor nations alike linking greater contributions by developed nations to greater responsibility by developing nations” (US Government 2002).
Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 14-5 By contrast, there are no such complications associated with the objective of strengthening governance—loosely defined as transparent and accountable government, predictable and fair administration of laws and regulations, and restraint on corruption. Good governance is a sine qua non of the development process and essential for a variety of other objectives, including reducing conflict and containing transnational threats such as pandemics, illegal narcotics, and weapons proliferation. The World Bank and the broader research community have measured and tested a wide variety of institutional features that differentiate the governance environment in various countries, with results that are starting to provide concrete guidance for practitioners in the field. In recent years, America increasingly has used foreign assistance to purse governance reforms either through program content or conditions for eligibility. Indeed, the newest U.S. development agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, for the first time makes progress on corruption and “ruling justly” –although not democracy per se – an explicit criterion for eligibility. Nonetheless, actually achieving good governance remains an implementation challenge.
Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow Hoover Institute, In Search of Democracy, 2016, p. 432-3 The logic of conditioning economic assistance on democracy (or progress toward it) is relatively recent. While there had been individual country episodes of conditionality prior to 2000, these generally were much more often linked (by World Bank and IMF negotiating teams) to a country’s economic reform policies, and typically were linked to promises of future reforms rather than offered as rewards for prior behavior. With the initiation in 2002 of a new development assistance vehicle, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), the Bush Administration brought the principle of conditionality to a new level. The semiautonomous implementing agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), rewards developing countries for demonstrated performance in democracy, just governance, an economic freedom and entrepreneurship, ranking countries on a set of 22 indicators. Countries that rank highly qualify for substantial new grants of aid, which must be negotiated with the MCC in contracts for developmental programs. While the MCA has only been funded at a fraction of its promise (falling well short of the anticipated goal of $5 billion annually), it has negotiated quite significant compacts for developmental assistance with a number of developing democracies, such as El Salvador, Mongolia, the Philippines, Ghana and Malawi. The amounts of the compacts typically run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, providing a tangible incentive to achieve and maintain standards of democracy and good governance. And the willingness to suspend countries such as Nicaragua, when they veer away from democracy also reinforces the conditionality mechanism. Unfortunately, some of the recipients, like Armenia and Jordan, are clearly not democracies, while others, like Tanzania, are at best ambiguous in their adherence to democratic norms. However, in 2001, the MCC, which administers the grants and judges eligibility, modified the requirements to require that eligible countries score above an absolute threshold on either political rights or civil liberties (as measure annually by Freedom House). Whether this most ambitious experiment to date in aid conditionality succeeds over time in promoting democracy will depend first on whether democracies like Ghana achieve more vigorous economic development with this and other aid flows; second to what extent the political conditions are sufficiently well-monitored and enforced so that elected leaders perceive real costs in trying to diminish or undermine democracy; and third, whether the selection criteria are in fact tightened so that obviously authoritarian regimes do not continue to be selected. One encouraging trend is that several of the countries that have recently been granted more limited aid under the “threshold program” to try to raise them up to qualifying standards are emerging democracies, like Liberia and East Timor, where a sizable flow off politically conditional aid might help to lock in democratic commitments while advancing the economic conditions for sustainable democracy. Directory: assets assets -> Northern territory of australia assets -> Number: caveat in the [Will/Will and Codicil/Estate of] assets -> Invitation for Bid Calact/mbta for Standard Floor and Low Floor Rural Duty Vehicles ifb no. 12-03 November 14, 2012 assets -> 12 Step Retreats For Everyone in Twelve Step Recovery Ratner Fellowship assets -> 12 Step Retreats For Everyone in Twelve Step Recovery Ratner Fellowship assets -> Sigaccess annual Report assets -> Central Government is expected to ask the seventh pay commission to consider merging 50% dearness allowance assets -> List of accessible executive records assets -> Emergency telephone numbers Call toll-free from anywhere in France Download 2.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
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