Foreign Aid Chief Pledges Reforms

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - President Bush's signature foreign aid program was created to transform the economies of some of the world's poorest countries, but as John J. Danilovich, a businessman and former ambassador, took over its leadership this week, his first challenge was to change its reputation for moving at the plodding pace of an ox cart.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation has spent only 2 percent of the $2.5 billion appropriated in its first two years and has signed agreements with only five countries for less than half the total. Republican leaders in Congress just this week almost halved the president's $3 billion request for next year.
.....
The agency's prospects now depend on whether Mr. Danilovich, a longtime Bush friend and political supporter, can deliver results and persuade Republicans in Congress, lavish in their praise for the idea behind the program, to be equally generous with taxpayer dollars in coming years.
.....
He spent about 20 years in the maritime industry, based in London, and organized American voters living there for Mr. Bush and his father. Mr. Danilovich and his family contributed $21,425 to Republican candidates and party committees from 1999 until he became ambassador to Costa Rica in 2001, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. In his service in Costa Rica and then as ambassador to Brazil, he became known as capable and connected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/politics/13aid.ready.html