Cairncross whos the ceo and president of the millennium challenge corporation. After a long wait, we have a fully installed that something of applause. Why do we give our friend a round of applause. [applause] congratulations. I think you get the prize for sort of saintly patience and diplomacy, and i think really, really glad you were in this job. I think its really important that Government Agencies have Senate Confirmed leaders so its really important you have, youve you been entrusted with this role. So i wanted to give you a chance to share some of your reviews with our friends here about how you see the future of the mcc. But before we do that, maybe not to just give this group, i think everyone probably in this audience if theyre here in mid august knows all about the mcc, but maybe just so were all on the same page if you might just do sort of the mcc 101 from your perspective. What is the mcc . How does it work . Then i have a couple of softball question for you we can take from their expert i am pro softball questions. Before that, thank you, dan, thank you to csis for hosting the event. We appreciate it. To be able to get out and talk about it. And i also want to say, its an honor to be nominated to do a job like this and i couldnt be prouder to represent an agency with such a tremendous staff. Ive only been in the couple of weeks. I can tell you already the best job ive ever had and im looking forward to moving forward. I also say thank thank you, i e faces around the room, and people of been very supportive and helpful to me during this whole process, so thank you all. Okay, mcc. Well, mcc, we are an independent u. S. Gittleman agency and we do development by design differently. So we work on a need and meritbased model, and we identify countries on a scorecard basis. So we look to consolidate gains in Good Governance, economic reform, and investment in a government people. Once her Eligibility Criteria are met, we work with those governments if our board determines that we should proceed to identify constraints on their economic growth. This is a process that we undertake in conjunction with the host country, our partner countries, and its country led. So the idea is they come to us and they say this is what we need, and we wanted partnership with you. And then we go through a rigorous, open process to determine what the work causes of economic constraints are and identify sustainable, measurable, achievable projects that will address those constraints and have the highest impact on the lives of our partner countries people. During that process we demand accountability from our partner countries. We have conditions precedent that we meet, that we demand are met over the course of this project. And if theyre not we have the ability to withdraw funds or to narrow the scope of the project or even to cancel a project. And so we regard i think the agency as a excellent track record as being great stewards of the american taxpayer dollars. Because after all, these are grants that we are engaged in. This is in a load were giving. This isnt something that saddles the coach with that. This is this is a project we inw and say this is our grant working with you to achieve a concrete result. Its going to be accountable, measured and then analyzed for years and years afterwards. Either way, this is all available online. Its very transparent. Every contract were in, all the rates of return on our projects, and our staff has recently come up with evaluation brief which were very proud of which makes it is more accessible for the American Public to get a grip on what were doing and put ice on it. The way, i dont mean to be too glib about this, but ive always thought that the mcc was sort of like the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes of Global Development, and ed mcmahon knocked on the door and said, remember this tv ad . Im dating myself, but sort of ed mcmahon would come and say youve met a series we have done serious, rigorous using opensource data across several pockets of data. I think theres a variety, i dont know, 16 or 17 indicators, or 20 indicators within the buckets. Youve met the requirements, and so now weve got a significant amount of money that we are prepared to provide to you if youre willing to work with us. And then theres the conversation and negotiation about what that looks like. I think what also is really great about what you guys, soi think the transparency, the flexibility you all have, i think the analysis that you do both in terms of leveraging sort of open source analysis. You are using global different data sources, the world bank for the index of Economic Freedom or other sources. And then i think it with the constraints to growth analysis is a very important innovation for Global Development as well. Theres an mcc model. Youve talked a little bit about it. Theres also the mcc effect. Can you talk a little bit about the mcc affect . I think that is really, really interesting. The model and effect are related. The model is what has made mcc such a success. We are in our 15th year. Our existence came out of the bush administration. It was started in 2004. And what is kept our track record so good and what leads to the mcc affect is the subjective view of whos eligible. And then the datadriven approach to developing these projects. The eligibility side of it, how we select partner countries to work with, its based on these independent scorecards that are drawn from the heritage foundation, world bank, objective criteria that break down into Good Governance indicators, Economic Freedom indicators, and a Government Investment in the people indicators. And if they passed though scorecards relative to the rest of the country in the world, which we can work with either low Income Countries or lower, middle Income Countries. So thats the needbased component. The meritbased component is the scorecard. Then we engage in a conversation with our board of directors, which is made up of state, ustr, aig, for private sector and treasury Board Members to engage with them. Thats a process that would making a policy decision based on some of the strategic concerns are woke up in the morning and said i really like malawi today. Right. Its designed to keep the process objective its designed to help the agency state laser focus on it Single Mission of reducing poverty through economic growth. And i think its led to an enormous amount of bipartisan support on the hill. I think it has great cachet in the countries where we work and a respect for the Development Model is very strong. As ceo coming in, that model is very important to me and im sure well talk about it, the current compaqs coming up, but to preserve and protect that model and grow the support that model is a big goal of mine. So then we get to the mcc affect and that really is aligning incentives. Humans are not incentivebased creatures, so, so countries want us to engage with them. This this is a grant for major Infrastructure Project typically, leads to it opens the door to a lot of private sector capital coming in because its creating an enabling environment thats very positive. Its the u. S. Governments stamp of approval that this this is a government that is doing good things. And on the front end of that, countries try to put themselves in good position to work with us. A great example of this is elected in 2010 following the civil war. Their country met four the 20 indicators at the time, and within five years they have met 14, 14 of 20 indicators and we engaged in a compact with them. Thats because the president came in and said, im establishing a unit within my new administration specifically to meet mccs criteria. We want to work with the americans. We want them here everyone they cachet it comes with that. So were just, i was just in cote divoire last week for the local conference but also because our compact entered into force which mean the fiveyear clock, all our projects, we are five years on time and budget, pencils down, thats the time we have. By design. That started just last week. It was online but the president had brought in a countdown clock which is this big digital clock and a big elephant was rolled on top of it, and they started it right there in a room at its county down and sits in the nca, which is the in country entity that manages the projects. Which is another very important piece of what we do. The infrastructure and project piece is what we deal. The Knowledge Transfer of how we do it, i regard as equally important. Because its such a contrast to other Development Models. Its a temperature. Its transparency. Its debt analysis and understanding how to bid projects out correctly. All that great and the private that is very positive for these countries. Just one example of that. We had just a week or so ago, we had Human Resource managers from in country nca, which is staffed by individuals from our partner countries all into mcc for a workshop, collaborative workshop on how we run Human Resources management at mcc. So would talk about things like gender equality in the workforce, nonharassment, meritbased hiring decisions. All of this Knowledge Transfer is being shared and its growing within our partner countries because of what mcc is doing. I think thats a huge component of what we do and hopefully a legacy that we are leaving behind. I think this would cachet is very important. I think like you said there are incentives for countries. Its been proven, there have been a series of studies done that demonstrates there is an mcc affect and the country want to be labeled as an mcc partner country. Its changing behaviors and changing policy. Something thats been a very important contribution to Global Development. You now have been in business for 15 years. Historically, the model has been five years. Youve worked in a specific country. Theres been some adjustments just recently. Talk a little bit about that. Theres been some changes i think in the last, in the most recent past that use some new authority, to talk a little about that. Yeah, sure. And, of course, the whole design of the agency is to learn. Every contact we enter into, every new equipment where constantly self evaluating and trying to do it better. The new authority that dan is talking about was last year in the african growth and opportunity and millennium challenge of modernization act. We were given the authority to work on concurrent cop expert praises a week enter into a project which we call a compact with a single country. And now we have the ability to do a concurrent compact with an existing partner, so long as its promoting regional investment or regional trade. So just for these a conversation i refer to them as compacts. Thats technically not exactly right, but the idea is to grow, help grow a regional, sustainable economy and link crosscountry. Crosscountry, crossborder. With the new authority, its new ground. We are working through how to do this. In december of last year our board selected five west african countries as eligible for a regional compact. And we are in the process of working to what those projects would look like, you know, what exact sectors that would be in and who would participate in them among those five countries. But whats important to me and whats important to the staff at mcc is that as we engage in this, the same rigor, the same accountability, the same transparency and evaluation, the same model applies to this regional authority. So we are looking to make sure that the first footballs out of the gate are for successful. Just as an example, lets say you had an agricultural corridor that crossed a political border. So to make countries in west africa. It would make a lot of sense to have regional compact. Theres a good reason that Something Like this. There are transportation corridors, our transmissions, agriculture. It makes a great deal of sense. And some of what were doing right now has a a great deal of regional impact. So in malawi we did a power sector compact, and malawi now has a duly to hook in to discuss african power pool. There engaged in an agreement with mozambique right now. Thats coming online and thats because of the mcc compact from the first time around. In cote divoire, the Port Infrastructure and the roundabout, i dont know if anyone here has been there, but the traffic is, its not even really traffic. Its just sort of concrete no movement. Right. For example, we had i think two miles between the hotel and airport, and there were times when you have to build in three hours to get to the airport. Get my steps and. Right, get your steps in. So eating the congestion in that port which is a major component of our compact with cote divoire is going to have a regional effect because its a major source of transport and trade. This race something we did a paper couple years ago about the mcc. One of the things we found was about more than 50 of the work that was done that mcc projects had done or had an infrastructure component. In some way you could argue that mcc, and a very much in favor of this, theres been a finger on the scale as part of the constraint, you kind of run the constraint of a a country throh sort of the excel spreadsheet and a smart people of the insincere helping you and supporting this or partner with the government. What comes out a sort of the end when the smoke clears is we need a port of any power, we need roads. Theres a lot of, think its great. I think we should be doing more infrastructure. Do you have any comment on that . Is as if the mcc is in some way the back door for the u. S. Government. I think what i would say to constraints analyses and the final projects are determined by whatever the facts lead, is where we went up. It may be the case, and it certainly is the case, that most of our portfolio is either transportation or energy infrastructure. In many of our partner countries, that is were the analysis leads. The other thing i would say, i want to make sure to mention is, mcc is unique as well because we are not only working on the heart of infrastructure but were doing is additional and policy reform as sort of an anticorruption with a heavy focus on anticorruption in order to great sort of enabling environment that will lead to a sustainable economy. In many of these places we are engaged in that reform as well, and we have a whole other section of projects that we can engage in for countries that dont quite need a compact criteria called Threshold Programs that are smaller projects like mcc finishing school. Thats right. Trying to help it is smaller projects focused on a specific thing, right . A country is on the right track, trying to do the right thing and were trying to help get into a good place in terms of our criteria and consolidate some gains that the making, but you really go in and leverage some institutional reform. We have these transcripts that metrics all over the world. Its not our metrics, and youve got a gap here and here, and want to use the Threshold Program to close the gap in these areas, right . Thats right. Its very important. I do think this issue of anticorruption is particularly important, and in no, it is built into the work you all do. We as a country dont fully appreciate this issue of weve been the leader historical over the last 40 or some time to dump on the issue of anticorruption. I think its a movie issue all over the world. To the extent we can be at the front of the parade on anticorruption, the better. I saw the World Economic forum had a study that the issue of corruption is either number one, number two or number three and Something Like 80 countries. The risk skyrockets more for third parties, for private Sector Investments. And until you can get a handle on that, you are not going of much of a sustainable economy. You know, in cote divoire, for example, one of the ministers was talking to me about the need for more private Sector Investment, the desire to American Companies come in and work on these projects one of the things he said is we didnt really know how to bid these projects out until mcc showed up. We didnt understand what was needed and we were talking different languages to potential partners. That in and of itself, that transparency, that open procurement, that bidding process in itself is way to fight corruption. We have a good track record. When you talk about power and roads and ports, ever were to associate with those words i think about china. How does china come across the mccs radar screen . China as are going to is very active on Infrastructure Projects, particularly in africa. Mcc serves as a great example of an alternative system. It is country led. So this is something that the host country is coming to us and asking for. We demand, as part of the process, stakeholder buyin. Thats public, either sector, Civil Society. There has to be buyin. Youre not going have a sustainable project if its not something that folks in our partner countries want. We demand openness. We demand accountability. Value for money on our contractors and are projects, and would look to identify those projects that will have the greatest amount of measurable impact on the lives of our partner countries citizens, and look for that sustainability. For their entire economy and that sort of selfdetermination and accountability and Knowledge Transfer to continue on working on their own is may be as a contrast to other models. It is stark contrast to other models and i think its a contrast that is, i think its very desirable. I would assume, i suspect when you go into many of the countries, im sure you are very welcome at the ivory coast, for example,. We are very welcome. It was phenomenal to see, and its an honor to be representing mcc, but