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US support to Central Asia to decrease in future — experts

The volumes of financing will be largely determined by demand from recipients, Dmitry Kuznetsov said

MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Decisions taken by US President Donald Trump on reducing aid to Ukraine and closing USAID raise concerns about whether the customary high level of financing by the United States to Central Asia will persist in the future, though other countries’ financing is not expected to decline, according to research titled 'Monitoring Russia’s Economic Outlook', carried out by a team of experts from the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy.

"Traditional DAC (Development Assistance Committee - TASS) leaders on providing ODA (Official Development Assistance - TASS) are the US, Germany, Japan, France, with the US having sharply increased their foreign aid due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the recent Donald Trump’s statements on reducing aid to Ukraine, as well as the closing of programs of the US Agency for International Development cast doubt on the possibilities for a traditionally high level of financing of American programs of international aid to continue in the future," according to research.

However, Research Associate Dmitry Kuznetsov stressed that more than 60 bilateral and multilateral development partners work in the Central-Asian regions, including non-OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. "In this respect, no serious decline in external financing is expected in the region," the expert said.

The volumes of financing will be largely determined by demand from recipients, he added. "For example, in 2014, Kyrgyzstan moved from the group of countries with low income to the category of lower-middle-income countries, while Kazakhstan is shifting from the recipient status to the donor status," Kuznetsov explained.

"It should be noted that some OECD DAC donors, such as Sweden, Norway, and Finland, send aid via multilateral institutions providing more than 60% of their ODA. Unlike the US, Germany, and the UK rely on bilateral instruments. Nevertheless, Germany maintains leading positions as an OECD DAC donor providing the highest ODA volumes (in absolute terms) through international entities, followed by the UK, the US, and France," according to research.

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