ArmInfo. The World Bank published on its website a study entitled "Appropriation of foreign Assistance by Elites. Evidence from Offshore Accounts". The document mentions 22 countries, including Armenia.
The authors of the study are three economists, one of whom is a World Bank employee. They studied data on foreign currency transfers from two dozen countries, the most dependent on soft loans and World Bank grants. And they found out that as soon as these countries receive a substantial amount of assistance - more than 1% of GDP - almost immediately out of them, the outflow of money to offshore begins. Forming in average, 7.5% of the received. But they steal, perhaps more, the BBC study quotes.
"Such a modest scale is the lower threshold, since they only take into account funds sent to foreign accounts and do not include spent on real estate, luxury goods and so on," the study said. "Experts note that if the scale of aid increases to 3% of GDP, which is typical for extremely impoverished countries due to the microscopic size of their economy, the share of outflow doubles to 15%. The study included 22 countries: Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ghana, Guyana, Guinea-Bissau, Zambia, Mauritania, Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra- Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Eritrea and Ethiopia. They were chosen because the amount of aid relative to the size of their economy is significant, and the local banking system is not developed, or even completely absent - and therefore the outflow is clearly visible.
The BBC notes that the publication of the document was preceded by scandalous circumstances: the study was ready in November, but the World Bank decided to publish it only now, explaining that it delayed publication because it "had doubts about the validity of the conclusions."
