Second Board Meeting of the Millennium Challenge Corporation

Second Board Meeting of the Millennium Challenge Corporation

(9:00 a.m. EDT)

SECRETARY POWELL: The meeting will come to order. It's a great pleasure for me to welcome all of you to the second meeting of the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. I see that all of my fellow directors are present, so we have a quorum to begin our business.

Before we get to the first item of business, I should note that the bulk of this meeting will relate to the selection of eligible countries for the Millennium Challenge Account and this necessarily must be closed to the public due to the nature of the discussion. Certain of the information relating to candidate countries is classified, and thus not appropriate for public dissemination. We may also need to discuss a few internal personnel matters, which requires a closed meeting of the Board.

I hope, however, that interested members of the public were able to attend our more extended public session on Monday at GSA, where Al Larson, our acting CEO and some of the MCC staff were able to update you on what MCC has been doing since the last Board meeting and to take some public questions and comments on MCC operations. I understand that that meeting was rather well attended.

I should note that Paul Applegarth, one of my senior advisors and the President's former nominee to be CEO of the MCC is here with us today. Paul was confirmed last night and we are now waiting for the President to attest to that confirmation and actually sign the appointment papers. Should that happen in the course of these proceedings, either public or private, we will instantly call a halt to the proceedings and swear in our new CEO. (Laughter.) And my congratulations to Paul, and welcome, finally and formally, to the Millennium Challenge Corporation. We certainly look forward to working with you in the weeks and months and years ahead.

With that, let's move on to the first item of business, the approval of the minutes of the open session of the February 2nd, 2004, Board meeting. All of us have had a chance to review the minutes of the open session of the February 2nd Board meeting, which are included in your Board books.

At Tab 1 in your books is a resolution to approve these minutes and certify that the minutes accurately reflect the proceedings at that portion of the meeting. If there are no questions or comments, do I have a motion to adopt the resolution at Tab 1?

SECRETARY SNOW: I move it.

SECRETARY POWELL: Do I have a second?

MR. NATSIOS: Second.

SECRETARY POWELL: All in favor.

(Chorus of ayes.)

SECRETARY POWELL: Opposed?

(No response.)

SECRETARY POWELL: None. The resolution is adopted and we will now move on to the next item of business, a report on MCC operations by the interim CEO, Al, who will be giving us his last report as the interim CEO. And we thank him for what he has done to get us up and running.

Al? Where are you? Are you going to do it?

MR. APPLEGARTH: I think the interim CEO has delegated it to me to give the report, but this is very much --

SECRETARY POWELL: This is the last time he'll be able to delegate anything to you. (Laughter.)

MR. APPLEGARTH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And actually, before I start the report, I personally want to thank Al for his efforts. Most of you know that Al was not idle before he was -- he had a full-time job as Under Secretary before he was asked to be interim CEO, and at the same time he was also acting as Sous-Sherpa on the G-8. So he's now got one-third of his time freed up, so I'm sure there will be all sorts of opportunities for additional things.

But he's been -- really been a pleasure to work with, and both I and certainly the staff at MCC are very appreciative of what he's doing and look forward to knowing he's not going to disappear in terms of his involvement with MCC and look forward to continue to work with him.

This is week fourteen of MCC. It's been a busy three months. This is a startup. I've been personally involved with startups before, but government startups are something else. MCC has spent a lot of time simply getting set up, new office space, hiring people and so on. But it's also felt an urgency to get moving with its mission and it's been putting financial administrative procedures in place to make sure it can be accountable to the board, to Congress, to the American taxpayer. It's already had the opportunity to begin working with the IG, Inspector General, and the GAO in terms of establishing governments -- governance procedures and transparency procedures. And at the next public board meeting in July, we actually want to spend some more time on that and I think this will be a good story to report on.

Today, as you know, is the selection for the countries that are eligible to -- become eligible to present compact proposals to MCC. And the selection criteria and methodology were approved by the Board subsequent to the last meeting and the synopsis -- those criteria and methodology and a synopsis of the comments that have been received are on the website, and data for all of the countries under those criteria are also on the website. There have been a number of meetings with interested parties around those criteria and with individual countries.

Communications and outreach have been a major part of what MCC's been trying to do, even during the startup period. The MCC has held two large public outreach meetings, two open meetings for ambassadors and ministers from candidate countries, and a number of meetings with NGOs, think tanks and other domestic groups, as well as numerous meetings with staff and members of Congress.

On Monday, as the chairman mentioned, there was an open session for members of the public, because this -- to report on activities, because this meeting, the open session of this meeting, must necessarily be short. That was quite well attended and lasted over an hour with Q's and A's.

If you're interested in the results of those open outreach meetings, each of them were web cast globally, and the tapes of those meetings are available on the MCC website.

One of the key principles that MCC is focused on is, of course, performance and measuring results. It has been trying to set a standard for itself in that regard and it is not coincidental that today's meeting is on the 90th day since the Board approved the list of candidate countries for this year. This is the earliest possible date under the legislation when MCC could meet and the Board could meet to approve candidate countries -- or eligible countries, and with the cooperation of Board members we're able to do it today.

There's been a lot of work on operational issues, and I think the key one is the publication of the program guidance for what should come in -- go into a compact proposal for those countries that are selected as eligible countries today. Again, that guidance is available on the website.

To summarize though, briefly, the guidance emphasizes the link to economic growth, the fact that there's a public-private consultative process within the partner countries, a focus of continued policy performance. Simply because a country has passed the criteria for selection today doesn't mean it can rest on its laurels. And there’s a look for a continued effort toward policy performance, there's a focus on financial accountability, measuring results, how MCC would work with other donors, and then sustainability of the development process.

We look forward to making progress with the eligible countries in developing compact proposals and programs, and to be able to present those to the Board when they're ready.

On a personal note, since today is my first official day on the job -- or hopefully will be once I'm attested and sworn in -- I do look forward to serving the President and the Board and working with the bipartisan support we have in Congress to really do a job for the American taxpayer as the CEO of MCC.

Today it begins. Not only for me, but I think with the country selection for MCC in many ways. And as I said in my confirmation testimony, the MCC is an opportunity to do something new and something different and something good. It represents America's aspirations and values and is really why many people join public service, to be able to do something like this.

It is a statement of about -- of American presence in international efforts that is a good statement. There have been a number of things that the Administration has done in terms of HIV/AIDS program, other things that are important. This is part of an international effort that hopefully we can begin to convey as part of the message about what we're really all about. And I do look forward to working with the Board, with the MCC team, with Al and others, to really carry it forward.

Thank you very much.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much, Paul. And again, we express our thanks to Al Larson and his team for all the hard work that they have done to bring us to this day.

As Paul has noted, this is an historic day for this new initiative. We finally have now our CEO and we're about to start designating specific countries to benefit from the MCC. So the President's vision has now been operationalized. The President's vision has come to pass. And I hope that the Congress, as it watches our work, and as it considers our request for funding in the next fiscal year, will take note of the fact that it was a hard road to get here, but we are here. And we are prepared to execute this program in a manner that is totally consistent with the President's far-reaching vision, as well as the Congress' intent.

MCC, MCA links up with our HIV/AIDS program, with all of our foreign policy assistance programs and developmental programs. When you look at them all, they all start to come together. If you're going to relieve poverty, you need food. If you're going to make sure that people are healthy, you've got to do something about HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. And it begins with a country resting on a foundation of law, a foundation of democracy, a foundation of no corruption; otherwise, the money could be wasted.

And so with the Treasury Department here and the Trade Representative here and USAID here, all the relevant agencies of the United States Government that are responsible for assisting people to a better life are represented on the MCC board. And of course, we have access to all of the other departments of government that play such an important role as well: Commerce; Agriculture. So many government agencies are involved and we will reach out and seek their input and advice as we move forward.

So I thank you all for attending this morning. And with my summary remarks, I will now close the open portion of the meeting and we will all, the Board members, will regroup in our conference room upstairs in five minutes' time. Thank you very much.
2004/499