Acronyms are helpful for simplifying a name but they can lead to confusion. Last year, while we were in Nepal, I kept on coming across a message spraypainted along the streets, “No MCC. Go Back America.” I teased the MCC Representatives to Nepal about this – already knowing that it wasn’t our MCC – and they confirmed that it was the Millennium Challenge Corporation. This MCC is a US government initiative that entered Nepal in 2023 and which has had a less than warm reception. MCC.gov, not MCC.org.

There were widespread protests against the Millennium Challenge Corporation entering Nepal in 2023. Instead of explaining why myself, I’ll direct you to a Reuters article on the subject – Why is a US infrastructure grant behind protests in Nepal? MCC Nepal told me that they got some angry phone calls and had to explain that they’re not the same MCC.

Here in Cambodia we are often also mistaken for another MCC. Two other MCCs, actually.

• The most common MCC we’re mistaken for is the Metallurgical Corporation of China Limited. This is a Chinese super conglomerate. Not MCC.gov or MCC.org, but MCC.com.cn.
• The other is Marine Conservation Cambodia. This MCC is also a nonprofit but their mission is conservation.

Occasionally we’ll get industrial orders that were intended for the other MCC or even job applications from Engineers. At NGO networking groups we’re sometimes asked about marine conservation and have to explain that, while we think that’s fantastic work, that’s not actually what we’re doing.