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Cabo Verde and the MCA foreign aid programme

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2020

João Resende-Santos
João Resende-Santos*
Affiliation:
Department of Global Studies, Bentley University, Waltham, MA02452, USA
*
Email: jresende@bentley.edu
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Abstract

In 2005, Cabo Verde became the second African country to receive the new foreign aid programme of the USA, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). It was among the few recipients of a second grant. Foreign aid has always been a controversial and hotly contested issue, and the MCA is no exception. This paper, based partly on personal experience with the programme, provides a critical examination of the nature, process and implementation of the MCA grants in Cabo Verde. The country had campaigned aggressively for the grants. The MCA not only financed important public investments, it was debt-free and without conditionalities. However, even while it allowed more leeway over its use and implementation compared with other aid programmes, it engendered its own challenges.

Keywords

Cabo VerdeMillennium Challenge Account-MCAforeign aiddevelopmentODAconditionalityUS foreign policygrant aidselectivity
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 91 - 114
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

The views and ideas expressed in this article are solely the author's, based exclusively on his own professional experience and assessments, and do not in any way represent or reflect the views of any government or any other institution.

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