Government of Timor-Leste

The Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Fidelis Manuel Leite Magalhães, met by videoconference on February 18^th, 2022, with the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in Washington, DC, in preparation for the negotiation phase of the “compact” of projects funded by the U.S. cooperation agency.

Next March, Minister Fidelis Magalhães will travel to the United States of America for the negotiations of this cooperation agreement. The objective of this phase will be to finalize the “compact” document and the implementation programme of the projects, which include details on their legal, financial and administrative requirements. 

The goal of this programme, worth about US$ 400 million, is to reduce the incidence of disease in the country, by improving the drinking water treatment, sanitation, and drainage system in Dili, and to improve the quality of Secondary Education by establishing an Excellence Training Centre for secondary school teachers and school leaders.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a cooperation agency of the United States of America, established in 2014, with primary goals of promoting economic growth and fighting poverty.

The MCC Board of Directors selected Timor-Leste in December 2017, as eligible to develop a “compact” programme.

In July 2018, Minister Fidelis Magalhães signed an Initial Funding Agreement with MCC to create a team responsible for identifying the economic sectors to be developed during the implementation of the programme.

This team was officially established in March 2019 and has since worked closely with focal points from the relevant ministerial lines and MCC delegations in defining the priority areas of the programme.

The Council of Ministers, in its last meeting, decided to grant Minister Fidelis Magalhães full powers to negotiate and sign the referred agreements.