ROGUES GALLERY:

The Millennium Challenge Account: Rewarding Open Markets (Sara J. Fitzgerald and Anthony Kim, February 10, 2004, Heritage Foundation)

Congress approved $1 billion for the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a new approach to foreign aid, on January 22. President Bush’s mission for the MCA is to “reward nations that have more open markets….” To accomplish the President’s mission, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which administers the program, should focus on the progress of candidate countries towards more open markets. The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom measures this progress precisely. [...]
 
The following table shows the performance of the 49 countries – out of the 63 that have been designated by the MCC as being eligible to compete for MCA grants - that are also covered by Heritage’s Index. The table uses Index data to divide the countries into quartiles according to how much their overall Index scores have improved over the past four years. Countries within each quartile are listed from the biggest improvement to the smallest. The first quartile represents countries that are progressing fastest toward economic freedom and, therefore, would benefit most from the MCA; the fourth quartile shows countries that have improved the least and are the least deserving of MCA grants. [...]
 
The MCC board should seriously consider that those countries receiving the highest ranking in this table receive MCA funds this year. The countries that are chosen this year will set a standard for years to come. Economics, not politics, should be the measurement standard for the MCA to carry out its mission.

1st Quartile
 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mauritania, Azerbaijan, Rwanda, Cape Verde, Nicaragua, Albania, Mozambique, Niger, Georgia, Armenia, Vietnam

Not the ten you'd come up with off the top of your head, eh?

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 12, 2004 05:40 PM