Fact Sheet

March 8, 2012 | www.mcc.gov

MCC’s Commitment to Gender Equality

Many countries with high levels of gender inequality also experience high levels of poverty, and gender inequality can be a 

significant constraint to economic growth and poverty reduction. 

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is committed to 

ensuring that gender is considered at all stages of its work with 

partner countries—from country selection and policy reform to 

project development and implementation. 

As the U.S. Government continues to further its commitment to 

strengthening gender equality and to improving the economic 

rights of men and women around the world, MCC strives to 

deepen its efforts to ensure that men and women are champions 

of their own development. 

Updated Gender Policy

MCC’s groundbreaking Gender Policy was developed in 2006. 

The policy mandates gender differences and inequalities are 

considered in selection of eligible countries and integrated into 

development and design of compact programs, assessment and 

implementation of projects, monitoring of program results, and 

evaluation of program impacts. 

The MCC Gender Policy is intended to provide guidance to partner countries on their responsibilities for 

integrating gender into all stages of compact development and implementation. The MCC Gender Policy 

was updated in April 2011 to incorporate MCC’s new Gender Integration Guidelines.

Gender Integration Guidelines

In March 2011, MCC released the Gender Integration Guidelines, a document describing 27 Gender 

Integration Milestones and Operational Procedures, which provide specific operational guidance on social 

and gender integration in the compact development and implementation phases. Examples include the 

recruitment of a social and gender specialist and the development of the Social and Gender Integration 

Plan, a cross-cutting strategy to integrate social and gender issues, throughout the compact. 

MCC is committed to ensuring that gender 

is considered in all stages of its work with 

partner countries.
MCC’s Commitment to Gender Equality | March 8, 2012 2

Partner countries and MCC are responsible for ensuring the successful execution of the Gender 

Integration Milestones and Operational Procedures during the development and implementation phases 

of the compacts.

New Gender in the Economy Selection Indicator

 MCC uses a rigorous evaluation process to select countries for compacts. This process uses third-party indicators to assess countries’ policy environments and determine in which countries MCC funding will be most 

effective in reducing poverty and promoting 

economic growth. 

MCC evaluates policy performance using objective 

and quantifiable independent indicators in three policy 

areas: Ruling Justly, Investing in People and Encouraging 

Economic Freedom. MCC seeks indicators that have 

broad country coverage, cross-country comparability and 

consistency in results from year to year. 

In fiscal year 2012, MCC updated its selection criteria 

to improve evaluation of country policy performance. 

This update included the addition of a new Gender in the 

Economy indicator, designed to assess a government’s 

commitment to promoting gender equality by providing men and women with the same legal ability to 

interact with the private and public sectors. 

The indicator measures the legal capacity of married and unmarried women to execute 10 economic 

activities: get a job, register a business, sign a contract, open a bank account, choose where to live, obtain 

a passport, travel domestically and abroad, pass citizenship onto their children, and become head of a 

household. The indicator uses data from the International Finance Corporation’s Women, Business and 

the Law report. 

The Gender in the Economy indicator builds upon the MCC Gender Policy by recognizing the relationship 

between growth, poverty reduction and gender equality and responds to the policy’s mandate to integrate 

gender in the country selection process.

Each year, MCC publishes scorecards that measure policy performance for every low income and lower 

middle income country. These scorecards are available to the public at www.mcc.gov/selection.

The new Gender in the Economy indicator builds 

upon the MCC Gender Policy by recognizing the 

relationship between growth, poverty reduction and 

gender equality.
MCC’s Commitment to Gender Equality | March 8, 2012 3

Gender Integration in Partner Countries

As part of MCC’s country ownership principle, each partner country creates an implementing entity 

organization called a Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). Each organization is staffed by local citizens 

and leads compact implementation. Many have made strides in integrating social and gender issues into 

their compacts.

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso was one of the first countries to develop a compact Gender Integration Action Plan. As part 

of this plan, MCA-Burkina Faso appointed a gender specialist to lead this process and established gender 

focal points for each sector, contractor team, and implementing partner. The focal points are responsible 

for ensuring effective implementation of the Gender Integration Plan and contributing to quarterly monitoring reporting to MCC.

One of the compact’s projects, the BRIGHT II Schools Project, includes construction of classrooms in 132 public schools originally 

built during Burkina Faso’s MCC Threshold Program. The project 

seeks to increase school enrollment, attendance and completion for 

children in remote areas, with a specific focus on girls.

To celebrate International Women’s Day in 2011, MCC invited 

two BRIGHT students, Fatimata Yanta and Aissatou Diallo, to 

participate in events at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Both 

girls had the opportunity to share their experiences with First 

Lady Michelle Obama, students at Washington’s Oyster-Adams 

Bilingual School and others. The girls spoke passionately about the 

impact of the MCC project on their lives and their futures.

“Before the BRIGHT school, very few girls went to school because 

the only school in the area was too far away,” Fatimata said. “My 

father said, ‘When they’re done building the school, I want you to 

go there, because even though I can’t read, I want you to be able 

to read.’ 

“I’m now in the sixth year at school. I have always been first in my 

class and do better than all the boys! I’m still responsible for watching some of the little children, but at the BRIGHT school I can take 

them to the bisongo [school day care] so I can attend class. When I 

grow up, I want to be a teacher or a doctor.... I wish all the girls in 

Burkina could go to school like me.”

Fatimata Yanta, a student at an MCCfunded school in Burkina Faso, visited the 

United States Senate to share her story 

with members of Congress. She said, 

“When I grow up, I want to be a teacher 

or a doctor.... I wish all the girls in Burkina 

could go to school like me.”
MCC’s Commitment to Gender Equality | March 8, 2012 4

Mongolia

MCA-Mongolia integrated a gender focus into all 

five compact projects: the Property Rights Project, 

the Health Project, the Vocational Education Project, 

the Energy and Environment Project, and the NorthSouth Road Project. MCA-Mongolia has appointed 

social and gender specialists and assigned gender 

focal points in each project unit. 

Vocational schools seek to link industry skill 

standards with modern curricula. Although female 

students predominate at higher levels of general 

education, there are more male students enrolled in 

vocational education and training institutions. As 

part of the compact, female and male students are 

encouraged to explore non-traditional and higher 

paid sectors. 

The Property Rights Project seeks to improve the system for recognition of and accessibility to full property rights. The project has made major headway by increase the government’s and civil society’s understanding that women’s and men’s access to land differs, by sex-disaggregating the data on all available 

land titles and undertaking an extensive outreach campaign to educate women on the importance of 

legal land rights. 

Because of outreach activities, Mongolia experienced a five percent increase in women’s participation 

in land ownership in 2011 in targeted areas. Women now hold about 40 percent of land titles in eight 

regional centers.

Senegal

Senegal developed its compact before MCC’s Gender Integration Milestones and Operational Procedures 

were adopted. Despite this, MCA-Senegal successfully integrated gender into the compact.

Senegal was the first partner country whose compact was already in implementation to align its staffing 

with the Gender Integration Milestones and Operational Procedures. MCA-Senegal’s gender specialist 

was elevated to a senior-level position that reports directly to the MCA director-general, giving her the 

authority and independence needed to ensure that gender is integrated throughout the compact. And 

although the compact did not initially include funds specifically for the purposes of gender integration, 

budget resources have since been allocated to support ongoing social and gender integration efforts.

MCA-Senegal has also signed a formal agreement with the Gender Laboratory at the Université Cheikh 

Anta Diop in Dakar. This collaboration will strengthen gender analysis, advocacy and monitoring and 

evaluation efforts during the remaining three years of compact implementation. The results of this work 

The MCC compact with Mongolia encourages vocational students to explore non-traditional and higher 

paid sectors.
MCC’s Commitment to Gender Equality | March 8, 2012 5

will inform annual updates of the Social and Gender Integration Plan, as well as provide social and gender 

information that may be used to improve compact projects.

MCA-Senegal is currently finalizing its Social and Gender Integration Plan, a key gender milestone. 

During 2012, the organization will conduct a series of gender capacity building trainings, which will 

include a diverse audience of both internal and external stakeholders.

To learn more, visit www.mcc.gov/gender.

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