Madagascar will receive US aid package

The Wall Street Journal dated April 18 has an interesting article about Bush's new strategy for poor countries. Madagascar is one of the first country that will receive money from the Millenium Challenge Corp program. This program has been launched in 2002 by G.W. Bush vowing that he was commited, in his "soul" to relieve 1/3 World suffering. Although the budget is lower than what was initially expected, it still top at $2.6bn in this fiscal year and Madagascar will recieve $110 million in a 4-year aid package.

To recieve the money, Malagasy officials went through extensive interviews and they engaged themselves to use the money to install computers in land offices in order to better manage property land: the goal is to simplify for the landowner the selling and buying of land, or use it as a collateral for a loan.

Is this really going to help the country reduce poverty? The reform of the land system should boost what my macro-economics teacher calls the TFP (Total Productivity Factor), which means higher GDP for Madagascar. But is this shift of GDP going to be significant? And does an increase in GDP automatically means lower poverty?

Don't take me wrong: I'm not criticizing the Millenium Challenge Program of Bush. I think it's a great initiative from the President. What I'm hoping is that this money will really help decrease poverty in Madagascar, a place where I spent 10 years as a child in the 80s.