Since its creation in 2004, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has acted as a key U.S. foreign assistance instrument focused on economic growth, country partnerships, and cost-effective projects. Its impact spans nearly 50 countries around the world in the agriculture, education, energy, health, and infrastructure sectors. MCC's three different grant systems—compacts, concurrent compacts for regional investments, and threshold programs—address the underlying causes of poverty and promote economic growth by working with the private sector and supporting regulatory reforms.

A Discussion with Millennium Challenge Corporation’s CEO Sean Cairncross

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The severe humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has had significant impacts on the female population both inside and outside the country. This event will address the impact the humanitarian crisis is having both on women who remain in Venezuela and who have fled, the importance of including women in politics, and the importance of incorporating women into decision-making positions to shape the future of Venezuela.

The Venezolana Perspective: Women and the Venezuelan Crisis

The CSIS Middle East Program and Humanitarian Agenda are pleased to host David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, to discuss the current crisis in Idlib, the dangerous lessons of war, and how Syria could serve as a model for future conflicts.  Jacob Kurtzer, Interim Director of the CSIS Humanitarian Agenda, will provide welcome remarks to open the discussion. Mr. Miliband's keynote address will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Jon B. Alterman, Senior Vice President, Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and Director of the Middle East Program.

Syria's Tragedy, Our Lessons

Over the past twenty years, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has proven to be a high-impact and resilient global health partnership. Launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000, Gavi has mobilized its network of government, private sector, and civil society partners to make vaccines affordable and available to millions of children in the world’s lowest-income countries. Yet after years of improvements, immunization coverage has now stagnated in some countries, and the challenges posed by demographic change, urbanization, and conflict all threaten to slow global progress. Gavi’s new strategy for 2021-2025 lays out a plan to confront these challenges and reach the most vulnerable children with vaccines, and the organization will seek funding to help it reach its goals at a pledging conference to be hosted by the United Kingdom in June of 2020. The United States has supported Gavi since 2000, and the Alliance’s contributions to health security and efforts to enable countries to move towards sustainable, self-financed immunization programs resonate with U.S. global health and development goals.

Gavi at Twenty: A Critical Inflection Point

Disputes over the regional order in post-Soviet Europe and Eurasia are at the core of the breakdown in Russia-West relations, and have created major security and economic challenges for the states caught in between: first and foremost Ukraine, but also Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Current policy approaches toward the regional order—i.e., the set of rules, norms, and institutions that govern the region—have exacerbated today’s disorder and instability. The authors of a new report offer a comprehensive proposal for revising the regional order.

A Consensus Proposal for a Revised Regional Order

Emerging technologies—such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, 5G, and synthetic biology—drive security and economic competition and are increasingly shaping national strategies. To develop an effective strategy for synthetic biology, policy makers and the general public need a better understanding of synthetic biology’s underlying capabilities, state of development, and diverse applications. Through a series of four symposia, CSIS will explore synthetic biology’s wide-ranging applications—from advanced microelectronics and materials to nutrition and cosmetics —and opportunities to shape its future development in support of U.S. security and economic interests.

A Discussion with Millennium Challenge Corporation’s CEO Sean Cairncross

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