In Ten Years Armenia’s National Statistical Service Received More Than $2 Million in Foreign Grants

In the period between 2006 and 2016, Armenia’s National Statistical Service (NSS) received financial assistance in the amount of more than 1 billion drams (more than 2 million US dollars). from different countries and international organizations, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the Union of Informed Citizens NGO.

– In 2006-2007, the NSS received a grant of more than 5 million drams from the International Labor Organization for research on labor migration. In 2007-2008, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency allocated a grant of about 18,5 million drams for researches on living conditions of disabled people, time management, environment statistics and rural economic registers.

In 2010-2013, the State Committee on Statistics of the CIS provided the NSS with about 8 million drams for the International Comparison Program.

For the census held in the Republic of Armenia in 2011, the NSS received grants from Italy, Norway, Switzerland and even India. The Italian government granted 5.6 million drams, the Norwegian government – 232.5 million drams, Switzerland – 185.5 billion drams, and India granted 162 units of computer equipment at value of more than 37.4 million drams. Thus, in order to conduct a census in 2011, the NSS received more than 461 million drams of foreign grants in total (according to exchange rate of that time about 1 million 150 thousands US dollars).

In 2014, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) provided the Armenian statistical service with 128.7 million drams for selective research “from school to work” and ubiquitous agricultural accounting program, and in 2015, the NSS received more than 219.4 million drams for a research on demography and health in Armenia.  For the same study, in 2016 the US Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded the statistical service with about 223.5 million drams.

Thus, in the last 10 years about 40% of 1 billion drams granted to the NSS have been allocated to the 2011 census and 60% of them received from the US Agency for International Development were spent on various studies.