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U.S. Government Assistance to Armenia

Since the re-establishment of Armenia’s independence in 1992, the United States Government has extended close to 1.4 billion dollars in assistance to Armenia. In the early years of independence, the annual assistance levels were higher, and primarily aimed to provide food and energy humanitarian aid to citizens of Armenia. As Armenia’s economic progress picked up, the U.S. assistance is now provided primarily in form of technical or development assistance, helping, among other things, to implement economic, legal, and democratic governance reform projects, and to provide an opportunity to Armenian students to learn in the United States.

The U.S. assistance is not provided as a ‘blank check,’ but, rather, it is extended through various assistance projects in Armenia. The United States Congress sets the level of assistance to Armenia, while the funds are disbursed through the United States Agency for International Development and other U.S. Government agencies.

The Governments of Armenia and the United States consult periodically on the priorities and directions of the U.S. assistance programs, through the mechanism of U.S.-Armenia Economic Task Force (insert link).

The people and the Government of Armenia are grateful to the people of the United States for their noble and generous efforts to help the new Republic of Armenia stand firmly on its feet and build a democratic, prosperous, and stable homeland. In the last hundred years, the American people have extended a helping hand to the Armenians, providing relief and refuge to the Armenian victims of the 1894-1896 massacres and the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, and, most recently, providing much-needed relief and emergency assistance to the victims of the 1988 earthquake in northern Armenia.

In May 2004, the United States Government qualified Armenia as a potential recipient of new form of U.S. assistance, under the “Millennium Challenge Account” program. The MCA has been proposed and established in 2003 to distribute more U.S. foreign aid to the development and transition countries based on merit criteria, such as their adherence to conducting economic reforms, implementing sound economic policies, combating corruption, promoting rule of law, and investing in country’s human potential, i.e., education and health care. The countries eligible for MCA in 2004 will still need to present formal programs, called compacts, to receive the funds; the compacts need to be approved by the Board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

U.S. Congress Earmarks $75 million for Assistance to Armenia November 21, 2004 On November 20, 2004, U.S. Congress passed the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which also allocated the funds for foreign assistance. According to the measure, the U.S. Government will earmark at least $75 million for foreign assistance programs in Armenia in Fiscal Year 2005. The bill also allocated $3 million towards humanitarian assistance needs in Nagorno Karabakh. In a significant development that will further increase U.S.-Armenian military cooperation, the Congress voted to extend $8 million in Foreign Military Financing to Armenia in FY 2005. Equally important was the preservation in parity in U.S. military assistance to Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was achieved in the bill.
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