Ideally, every MCC country program in the world should undergo a Program Review every five years. This doesn’t always happen due to instability, conflict, or other disruptions. Cambodia was scheduled for a Program Review in 2020 but it ended up being delayed for three years due to the pandemic. The Program Review is an opportunity to get perspective on MCC’s work in a country. It is conducted by three team members who interview all MCC personnel, key partner staff, and other stakeholders. They also conduct a document review and carefully review the implementation of the 5 year strategy plan.

The Three Person Team

• Team Leader: Someone external to MCC but who understands MCC’s philosophy and approach. Often a MCC alumni.
• Peer Reviewer: Someone currently with MCC but not with the country program being reviewed, who understands MCC’s current infrastructure, strategic priorities, and policies/procedures.
• Local Professional: A local to the country being served who deeply understands the culture and context. Someone with preexisting knowledge of MCC is preferred.

The Program Review Team this time had the added challenge of reviewing two country programs; Cambodia and Myanmar. This was the first 5 year Program Review since the Myanmar program merged with the Cambodia program.

In February, we hosted our first Program Review since starting in 2019.

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Team Leader: Ben Tipton

Ben is a MCC Cambodia alumni who served from 2004 to 2007. He was the service worker who oriented me when I first arrived in Cambodia in 2006 and, famously, wrote Cambodia’s first book on Rock Climbing. He is currently the Executive Director of Foundation Relations at Kent State University in Ohio.

While he was in Cambodia with MCC, Ben supported the MCC Mesang program in localizing into the Organization to Develop Our Villages, played a large role in starting-up MCC’s fair trade work in Cambodia, and supported a myriad of other local partners and initiatives. Ben is a very wise person and his quiet insights were profound. His historical perspective on Cambodia was extremely beneficial to the program review and we deeply appreciated his his ability to analyze and dig deeper.

Peer Reviewer: Stacy Nam

Stacy works out of the MCC South Korea office and is the current MCC Program Director for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). She’s a fantastic networker and has a wealth of knowledge. Every time we met with her we seemed to learn something new and make a new contact. It was really a delight to get to know this regional colleague whom we had never interacted with before. Myanmar and North Korea are both classified as “countries of sensitivity” by MCC, which means that we have to take great care to avoid putting any one risk when we talk about MCC’s work in these countries. It was very good to be able to compare notes on working in unstable and difficult contexts. She was also able to connect with some Korea peninsula peacebuilding contacts here; including Max Ediger and CPCS.

Local Professional: Sophea Rith

Sophea is an alumni of MCC’s IVEP program who spent 11 months serving and living in North America. She’s a professional trainer – with specialties in healthcare, professional development, and team building – and a freelance consultant. We had reached out to many local professionals to join the Program Review, – many of whom politely said yes, waited a few days, and then declined to avoid offending us – and only connected with Sophea shortly before the other team members were to arrive. Fortunately, God had a better plan than we did because Sophea was absolutely the right person to act as the Local Professional and far surpassed our expectations. Of course, she has a deep understanding of the Cambodian culture and context, but beyond that her insights, follow-up questions, and intuitive understanding really took things to a deeper level.

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We deeply appreciate how the Program Team listened deeply, discerned, and analyzed. It seemed that they dug deep into the partners and programming. It’s an impressive feat considering the few days they were in the country.

The Program Review was helpful and actionable. Some of the feedback lines up with our own thoughts and was good confirmation that we are on the right track but need to do more to prioritize moving forward from plan to action. Other feedback helped broadened our understanding by looking at things from a new perspective and brought up approaches that we hadn’t even considered. Some of the feedback – particularly around racism in GSL – is troubling and difficult; we appreciate how the Program Review handled it with the sensitivity and seriousness it warrants.

If you served with MCC before, MCC regularly recruits Team Leaders for Program Review from the alumni. It can be a good way to reconnect with and contribute to MCC, without going as far as signing up for a new term of service. If you’re interested, reach out to Area Directors that you know or the PLDR department to let them know.