Millennium Challenge to Launch Reform
Millennium Challenge to Launch Reform
Kyrgyzstan’s acceptance into the United States Millennium Challenge programme will help kick-start urgent reforms in the judicial and police systems as long as aid funds are used properly and transparently, say NBCentralAsia commentators.
On August 10, Kyrgyzstan was accepted into the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Threshold Programme, under which it will receive 16 million US dollars in aid to reform law-enforcement agencies, courts and criminal law procedure.
The corporation is a US government body which aims to help the world’s poorest countries. Those which want to join its schemes must meet 16 criteria for good governance, economic freedom and investment in social issues.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation is also supporting reform in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
US ambassador Mary Yovanovich explained that the Kyrgyz programme will help the government and NGOs fight corruption more effectively and carry out fundamental reforms in the judicial system and law-enforcement agencies.
Finance Minister Akylbek Japarov added that the amount of support given will depend on the government’s performance.
Shamaral Maychiev, the leader of the Future Without Corruption group and a member of the National Council for Combating Corruption, stresses that urgent reforms have been stalled for lack of funds, so that Kyrgyzstan’s acceptance into the scheme could not have come sooner.
“Merely having the will to pursue reforms is not enough; one needs to have the financial backing to do so,” he said.
Maychiev said the main risk factor when was that “when a country is given large loans or grant, it does not use them to good effect, or they get embezzled”.
Kyrgyzstan ranked 142nd out of 163 countries in a Transparency International report on corruption levels in 2006.
Sergei Slepchenko, an expert with the Perspektiva think tank, said long-term reforms can now be launched with the help of the new programme, but future support for them would depend on what the government does.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
On August 10, Kyrgyzstan was accepted into the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Threshold Programme, under which it will receive 16 million US dollars in aid to reform law-enforcement agencies, courts and criminal law procedure.
The corporation is a US government body which aims to help the world’s poorest countries. Those which want to join its schemes must meet 16 criteria for good governance, economic freedom and investment in social issues.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation is also supporting reform in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
US ambassador Mary Yovanovich explained that the Kyrgyz programme will help the government and NGOs fight corruption more effectively and carry out fundamental reforms in the judicial system and law-enforcement agencies.
Finance Minister Akylbek Japarov added that the amount of support given will depend on the government’s performance.
Shamaral Maychiev, the leader of the Future Without Corruption group and a member of the National Council for Combating Corruption, stresses that urgent reforms have been stalled for lack of funds, so that Kyrgyzstan’s acceptance into the scheme could not have come sooner.
“Merely having the will to pursue reforms is not enough; one needs to have the financial backing to do so,” he said.
Maychiev said the main risk factor when was that “when a country is given large loans or grant, it does not use them to good effect, or they get embezzled”.
Kyrgyzstan ranked 142nd out of 163 countries in a Transparency International report on corruption levels in 2006.
Sergei Slepchenko, an expert with the Perspektiva think tank, said long-term reforms can now be launched with the help of the new programme, but future support for them would depend on what the government does.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
