Finance Minister, Amara Konneh has described as tough journey Liberia's road to completing the goals of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

Addressing a news conference in Monrovia last Friday at the close of the MCC's first mission to Liberia, Minister Konneh stressed the need for Liberia to work harder so as to attain success.

The Liberian Finance Minister described the United States of America's MCC mission to Liberia as important, asserting further that the mission is important because Liberia, for the first time in December 2012, passed 10 out of 20 MCC indicators that showed great progress across "economic freedoms, investing in people and ruling justly."

Because of this progress, he said, "we are now eligible to develop a compact program with the MCC."

According to Minister Konneh, if Liberia gets the MCC compact design right, the MCC will make a significant investment here.

"And so we have to work hand in hand with the MCC to make sure we do get the design right: we are at the beginning of this process--and we will spend the next 18 months working hard to ensure that Liberia earns the investment that we need," Minister Konneh said.

Led by Madam Sheila Herding, the MCC mission visited and held discussions with numerous ministers of government, development partners and members of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

In a farewell message, Madam Herding noted that Liberia was moving at a faster pace as the Agenda For Transformation (AFT) of Vision 2030 was a very useful platform to build on.

She expressed optimism that Liberia will score high marks as the nation fights to build on indicators, as require through MCC policy and decision.

The MCC is an innovative and independent USA foreign aid agency that is helping to lead the fight against global poverty. It forms partnership with some of the world's poorest countries, but only those committed to good governance, economic freedom and investments in their citizenry.

The MCC provides these well-performing countries with large-scale grants to fund country-led solutions for reducing poverty through sustainable economic growth.

MCC provides two types of grants, including threshold and compact programs. The MCC Compact programs are large, five-year grants for countries that pass its eligibility criteria. While, the Threshold programs are smaller grants awarded to countries that come close to passing these criteria and are firmly committed to improving their policy performance.