Our Projects
E-Governance Activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina
USAID awarded Millennium Partners the e-Governance Activity in February 2020. This is a $10.3 million, five-year contract to increase the transparency of government processes and decrease the risks of corruption using state-of-the-art information technology (IT) solutions, effective oversight bodies, and external checks. Millennium is working with Transparency International and IOS Partners. Implementation of this activity began on April 1, 2020.
Access to Justice in Moldova
The Access to Justice Project (ATJ) is a two-year Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) project that aims to improve access to justice for Moldovans, especially the most vulnerable members of society who are marginalized and excluded. The program is implementing activities that will improve knowledge of the law and the available protections for fundamental freedoms; and ensure that legal aid centers are established, strengthened, and better equipped to provide legal aid to persons whose rights have been violated, including victims of discrimination and violence.
The Project targets those areas of Moldova where the public’s awareness of their rights is lowest and the capacity to provide legal aid is weakest. The project seeks opportunities for promoting legislative changes and policy reforms to promote legal aid and strengthen legal aid providers.
USAID’s Feteh (Justice) Activity in Ethiopia
Under this $25 million four year project, Millennium Partners together with its partner DPI is providing flexible, rapid-response technical assistance to the government of Ethiopia, specifically the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), relevant sub-committees within the AGO, the Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia (FSCE), and other government ministries to implement major reforms and build government capacity. Millennium is also collaborating with civil society organizations and the media to ensure public input into the democratic reform process, and to improve citizen engagement in the legislative changes needed to implement the reforms and secure the rights of the Ethiopian people. By strengthening rule of law and making the judicial reform process more transparent and inclusive, Feteh will lay the groundwork for broader democratization and economic growth.
Egypt: The USAID/Egypt Economic Courts Activity
Millennium Partners is a subcontractor to Tetra Tech DPK (Tt DPK) on this 5-year $19.2 million project to improve court management practices and build the capacity and professionalism of court leadership and court staff. Millennium Partners provides technical assistance in support of the project’s main technical activities to improve court administration and to develop, install and manage ICT solutions that will improve the efficiency and transparency of Egypt’s economic courts.
Cambodia: Civil Society Strengthening Project (CCSS)
CCSS is a five-year contract awarded to East-West Management Institute, Inc. by USAID. Millennium is a subcontractor under this project, engaged for the purpose of providing methodological support to build the capacity of a civil society organization to develop and use an online fact-checking platform and to conduct effective outreach to both journalists and news consumers. In addition, Millennium is producing five individual case studies on CCSS partners.
Justice Activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (JA)
The Justice Activity is a recently closed justice strengthening and anti-corruption project that focused on developing the capacity of Bosnian prosecutors to investigate and prosecute corruption while strengthening the integrity and performance of the judiciary. Millennium together with its partners DPI and NCSC collaborated with all Bosnian Ministry of Justices, 19 prosecutor offices, the High Judicial Prosecutorial Council, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, and regional anti-corruption organizations. With an all-Bosnian team and mostly local and regional short-term experts, we were able to advance local solutions that resonated with the public and government stakeholders and built sustainability. For its work USAID gave Millennium an “exceptional” CPAR quality rating while noting these significant achievements were made in an environment “bereft of political will.”
Kosovo Justice Sector Strengthening Program (JSSP)
This program is advancing the independence, professionalism, efficiency, and accountability of the Kosovo Judicial Council and the courts and supporting the integration of judicial structures in the north of Kosovo. JSSP assistance has improved the judiciary’s self-governance, enhanced court transparency, and significantly reduced case backlog while promoting greater representation of women in the judiciary. JSSP works with the MOJ and Parliamentary committees to strengthen the legal framework to support and institutionalize reforms and thus ensure their sustainability. JSSP has built the public’s trust in the rule of law and democracy though effective outreach and improved legal services. JSSP received a “very good” for its CPAR quality rating.
Moldova Open Justice Project
This three-year project successfully developed an advanced ICMS that connects judicial and other government entities, enhances judicial efficiencies and transparency, and generates sophisticated performance measurements and reports that promote system-wide accountability and public access to court information. Through training and technical assistance, Millennium and its team strengthened judicial knowledge, performance, and integrity. Millennium is helping court leaders incorporate international standards using the International Framework for Court Excellence (IFCE) and EU European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice standards (CEPEJ) and assisting the MOJ to operationalize the Judicial Ethics Commission and improve legal frameworks. Understanding the political dynamics in Moldova has enabled us to adapt and work more effectively with government stakeholders to garner support and achieve rapid results. To strengthen vertical checks on the government, we promote public engagement in a strategy involving social media, court information desks, TV, radio, public outreach events, and two public opinion surveys. For its work on this complex ICMS system and other accountability tools in an increasingly volatile political climate, Open Justice received a CPAR rating of “exceptional.”
Civil Society Initiatives to Support the Rule of Law in Sri Lanka (CSI.ROL)
Under the 3.5-year, $3.9 million CSI.ROL project, Millennium developed the capacity of key CSOs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to engage in evidence-based advocacy, enhance access to justice, and raise awareness of rights. Millennium worked with both civil society and the MOJ to lay the foundation for comprehensive reforms in the judiciary and build capacity by training judicial personnel, lawyers, judges, and legal aid providers. Of relevance to the Jordan ERA was our ability to provide rapid, flexible support to a newly elected government anxious to demonstrate its commitment to reform. Being prepared for a potential political realignment enabled us to respond quickly with a reform strategy and leverage an empowered reform constituency to gain government buy-in. For our work Millennium received a “very good” CPAR quality rating.
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Sri Lanka: Millennium Partners conducted a nationwide multi-level survey for the MCC on land and transportation in Sri Lanka
The MCC is conducting an economic analysis of the transport and land sector to better target its planned compact investments in Sri Lanka. Land and Transport have been identified as the major constraints to growth. To deepen its understanding of the political and economic dynamics involved in these sectors, MCC contracted with Millennium Partners to conduct three opinion surveys of the land and transport sector stakeholders at the firm and household levels throughout Sri Lanka. This also included a survey of Colombo firm and household commuters. Millennium Partners worked with local firms and an international survey firm to carry out the surveys.
Tunisian American Enterprise Fund (TAEF) Evaluation: Millennium Partners in association with Banyan Global conducted an evaluation of the Tunisia Enterprise Fund for USAID
Millennium Partners conducted a four month evaluation that rigorously examined the processes, governance and operational structures that have been established to date under the TAEF-USAID Grant Agreement. This evaluation provides an understanding of the effectiveness of USAID’s TAEF Fund to support small and medium enterprise (SME) development in Tunisia, and lays the groundwork for future evaluations.
East European Enterprise Funds and Legacy Foundations Evaluation for USAID: Millennium Partners conducted a comprehensive five country evaluation for USAID
Under this task order, Millennium Partners, in association with DevTech, conducted a case study evaluation that focused on five Funds and their corresponding Legacy Foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union (Ukraine and Moldova). These funds and foundations include:
• Albanian-American Enterprise Fund & Albanian-American Development Foundation
• Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund & America for Bulgaria Foundation
• Hungarian-American Enterprise Fund & Hungarian-American Enterprise Scholarship Fund
• Romanian-American Enterprise Fund & Romanian-American Foundation
• Western NIS Enterprise Fund
Conducted over the course of 9 months, the evaluation provided an in depth review of the operations and governance of these funds and the degree to which the funds and foundations have achieved their mandate of promoting enterprise growth in these countries.
Liberia Data Quality Review: Millennium Partners conducted a Data Quality Review (DQR) for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the energy and transport indicators in the Millennium Challenge Account-Liberia (MCA-L)
From August 2016-February 2017 Millennium Partners conducted a Data Quality Review (DQR) for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the energy and transport indicators in the Millennium Challenge Account-Liberia (MCA-L) Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Plan for the Compact. Millennium Partners DQR team undertook an in-depth analysis of the MCA-L M&E system, including: assessing the program logics; assessing selected performance indicators; assessing the existing data collection procedures, instruments, and documentation; assessing the capacity of relevant staff to collect and analyze data; and providing recommendations for improvements.
Benin Access To Justice Performance Evaluation
Millennium Partners undertook a final performance evaluation of the Millennium Challenge Account’s Access to Justice Project (A2J) of the Benin Compact in November 2014. This report is providing guidance for donors planning justice sector interventions, by highlighting those areas that would most benefit from donor investments.
Niger MCC Governance Threshold Country Program
The Niger Government Country Threshold Program (NGTCP) was a two-year initiative, funded by the US Government through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and managed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Millennium Partners was selected to support the Niger MCC TCP components Improving the Control of Corruption and Strengthening Business Creation and Land Access Procedures or what became known as the NGTCP program.
Our approach was to help the Government of Niger to quickly and positively impact public perception of the government’s control of corruption so as to build trust in democratic institutions and encourage a better investment climate.
Assessment of Access to Justice and Legal Education in Azerbaijan
This was a targeted assessment that focused on the state of legal education and legal aid in Azerbaijan and to make specific programmatic intervention recommendations to US Agency for International Development (USAID) on these two subject areas in rule of law.
Building Recovery and Reform through Democratic Governance (IQC)
Millennium Partners completed the Building Recovery and Reform through Democratic Governance (BRDG) IQC with USAID. This was a a five-year democracy and governance contract with a $750 million contract ceiling shared among six contractors. The purpose of BRDG was to support good governance in three areas including:
• Reinforcing legitimacy of state structure, policies, and functions
• Public management
• Strategic planning, policy, and institutional reform
Millennium Partners was awarded a BRDG IQC prime contract in the full and open competition but then also received the small business set aside under the BRDG IQC.
Millennium undertook three task order contracts under BRDG including:
• Ecuador Local Government Bridge Program ($656,000)
• Moldova Governance Threshold Country Program ($14.6 mn)
• Niger Governance Threshold Country Program ($4.9 mn)
Iraq Provincial Economic Growth (TIJARA)
Millennium Partners Member, Millennium International Consulting, is a subcontractor to the Louis Berger Group. Millennium has a four-year (April 2008-March 2012) $4.2 mn subcontract with Louis Berger. Tijara, which means prosperity in Arabic, provided support for the development of small and medium enterprises (SME) in the 18 governorates of Iraq. Tijara provided advice and training support for SME development to Business Development Centers across Iraq. and also advised and provided financial support for micro and small and medium credits through a number of Iraqi banks. Millennium has taken the lead in the SME banking component working with the Iraqi Company for Bank Guarantees and its member banks to provide SME credit through a system of loan guarantees and the Iraqi Company for Financing SMEs, a non-bank financial institution that provides direct lending to SMEs. Millennium provides monitoring and evaluation of the entire project.