MCC’s Contribution to the U.S.’s Global COVID‑19 Response
MCC’s success is rooted in its singular focus of reducing poverty through economic growth. We are most accountable and impactful working within our unique model which is designed to strengthen economies in developing countries. Our data-driven process develops investments to unlock a country’s most binding constraints to economic growth.
MCC’s country-led programs are structured to build capacity and invest in long-term, sustainable development—which generates the necessary conditions to promote economic revitalization and job creation once the COVID‑19 pandemic subsides. And, MCC is ensuring that women are key contributors to economic sustainability, as part of the U.S. COVID‑19 recovery efforts—related directly and indirectly to the health sector. This is an integral part of achieving MCC’s mission.
MCC’s programs can include directly strengthening a country’s health system or other interventions that indirectly improve a country’s health outcomes. MCC has many programmatic examples of direct and indirect benefits to a partner country’s health systems and the health of its people.
MCC Project with Direct Health Systems Benefit
Indonesia Compact I Community-Based Health and Nutrition to Reduce Stunting Project
Jake Lyell for MCC
Akmal Robani receives treatment at Pratama Hospital in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, which was built and is supplied under the new system implemented by the Procurement Modernization project.
In Indonesia, the $120 million Community-Based Nutrition Project aimed to prevent undernutrition of children in 11 provinces. The program was built on evidence of impact from an earlier World Bank experience. It trained health workers on infant and young child feeding, growth monitoring, and sanitation; conducted community sanitation events; provided iron-folic acid to pregnant women; conducted a communications campaign on stunting; and provided grants to incentivize the use of health services through a community-driven development program. In partnership with the World Bank, the project used incentives-based community grants to increase the demand for health, nutrition, and education services and improved the health sector’s capacity to respond to this increased demand at the health facility and community levels. The project aimed to benefit children in up to 5,700 villages where the rates of stunting and low birth weight were higher than national averages.
MCC Project with Direct Health Systems Benefit
Lesotho Compact I Health Sector Project
The $144 million Health Sector Project in Lesotho’s first compact was targeted to improve the health sector response to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health through health infrastructure rehabilitation and health information management investments. Among other things, the project funded the construction or rehabilitation of 138 health centers and 14 outpatient departments (representing approximately 90 percent of these facilities in the country), a national reference lab, blood transfusion services, and provided technical assistance and other support related to health information systems and waste management.
Lesotho Compact II (in development)
MCC is currently developing a second compact with the Government of Lesotho. One proposed project in this compact will focus on health. The project, with an estimated budget of $40 million, will aim to strengthen the performance and sustainability of the health system through these channels: 1) strengthen the financial sustainability and accountability of central Ministry of Health structures to deliver healthcare services; 2) improve health management information systems to support the use of evidence in healthcare decision making; and 3) strengthen underutilized service delivery mechanisms for community-based healthcare and responses to gender-based violence.
MCC Project with Direct Health Systems Benefit
Mongolia Compact I Health Project
Confirming cell diagnosis via telemedicine as part of the Mongolia Compact Health Project.
A $42 million investment helped to strengthen the national program for prevention, early diagnosis, and management of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries. Mongolia has seen death rates from premature heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and pedestrian traffic accidents rise precipitously over the past decade. The MCC-funded public health intervention trained more than 13,000 healthcare providers, purchased equipment, implemented new clinical protocols, and funded more than 219 research and other behavior change campaign grants to reduce premature deaths and disabilities from NCDs – such as cancer and cardiovascular disease – and preventable injuries among 35-59 year-olds. The project also worked with private industry to promote better health for the country’s people leading to a number of improvements, including a reduction of salt, sugar, and fat in popular food brands. MCC’s investments led to an increase in the number of primary health center doctors with necessary NCD-related standards and supported new food labeling standards to protect and inform consumers.
MCC Project with Direct Health Systems Benefit
Honduras Threshold Program’s Public Financial Management Project
Social accountability grants were provided to four civil society organizations as part of the Public Financial Management Project. The grants were designed to increase demand for greater accountability and responsiveness from Honduran public officials and service providers with the ultimate objective of improving national and municipal government effectiveness. Three grants targeted the health sector, with a focus on: 1) operational effectiveness within the Ministry of Health; 2) improved primary health care services for women and adolescents by training women’s groups to assess the quality of public health services and work with authorities to develop action plans in six municipalities; and 3) higher quality care in the main hospital in the southern part of Honduras (Hospital General del Sur).
MCC Project with Indirect Health Systems Benefit
Ghana Power Compact
Through multiple projects in Ghana’s second, $308 million compact, MCC is investing in power infrastructure and institutional capacity to improve reliability, which will benefit key hospitals and clinics. MCC is replacing and retrofitting seven Government of Ghana institutions with energy efficient appliances. One of these institutions is the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the nation’s biggest hospital. The hospital was selected because it was one of 20 short-listed high electricity consuming public institutions that responded to an open call of interest to participate in the program.
Additionally, the compact is funding the construction of two primary substations located near health centers in Accra to bolster power reliability and voltage stability. The Legon Primary Substation at the University of Ghana Teaching Hospital will improve power supply reliability and reduce technical losses primarily for the University of Ghana Medical Centre and Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research. This planned substation is urgently needed to augment the existing limited power supply to the university campus and teaching hospital. The Kanda Primary Substation will improve power supply reliability and reduce technical losses to two of the biggest hospitals in Accra: 37 Military Hospital and Ridge Hospital.
MCC Project with Indirect Health Systems Benefit
Tanzania Compact’s Energy Sector Project
Jake Lyell for MCC
Clinical Officer Salvatory Msangawale (left) cares for Hadija Biharu, a young malaria patient, with the assistance of the child's mother, Stella Amran, at Bitale Health Center in Bitale village, Kigoma Region, Western Tanzania. The health center was until recently without electricity. The Millennium Challenge Corporation's solar energy programs have brought electricity to Bitale and dozens of other schools, hospitals and dispensaries across the region.
MCC funded the $199.5 million Energy Sector Project, including the $11 million Kigoma Solar Activity, which installed a total of 390 solar photovoltaic systems in dispensaries, health centers, schools, and village markets in areas where energy infrastructure and access to grid electricity were limited. As a result, 14 health centers received a solar energy system and 130 vaccine refrigerators were connected to a solar energy system.
MCC Project with Indirect Health Systems Benefit
Timor-Leste Compact (in development)
MCC is developing a compact with the Government of Timor-Leste that is planned to include an estimated $200 million Water Disinfection, Sanitation, and Drainage Infrastructure Project that will provide the capital city with a modern water and sanitation system to reduce the disease burden and improve population health. Early work on this project has already led to the Government of Timor-Leste passing new legislation to create the country’s first water utility and put in place a water regulator. MCC is collaborating with other donors to support significant policy reforms that will systematically establish a sustainable sector.
MCC Project with Indirect Health Systems Benefit
Zambia Compact’s Lusaka Water Supply, Sanitation, and Drainage Project
A child rolls a water barrel to an access point in Lusaka’s Mtendere township.
Poor access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a principal cause of death for children in developing countries. In Zambia, more than one million people are expected to benefit from MCC’s $310 million water project, which aimed to improve city drainage, water, and sanitation in support of the Zambian Government’s ongoing water sector reform efforts. The project also worked to improve the financial sustainability of the city’s main water supply and sanitation utilities to provide better service delivery for residents of Lusaka. The economic benefits of these interventions are designed to accrue from reduced illness and improved health.
MCC Project with Indirect Health Systems Benefit
Sierra Leone Threshold Program’s Water Sector Reform Project
Sierra Leone has an abundant water supply, but falls behind other sub-Saharan countries in clean, safe, and reliable distribution, especially in the greater Freetown area where the bulk of the population is concentrated. The $15 million Water Sector Reform Project, currently in implementation, aims to improve coordination, commercial practices, and capacity of the sector. Anticipated benefits include loss reduction, improved supply, and better health and hygiene for the country.