Alternative title & the title of the article:“The Harvard Boys Do Russia”
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/harvard-boys-do-ru…
After seven years of economic “reform” financed by billions of dollars in U.S. and other Western aid, subsidized loans and rescheduled debt, the majority of Russian people find themselves worse off economically. The privatization drive that was supposed to reap the fruits of the free market instead helped to create a system of tycoon capitalism run for the benefit of a corrupt political oligarchy that has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars of Western aid and plundered Russia’s wealth.
The Harvard Institute for International Development “acquired virtual carte blanche over the U.S. economic aid program to Russia, with minimal oversight by the government agencies involved.”
The HIID has a close association with former First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais.
The HIID was supposed to be a group of disinterested foreign advisers. Rather it was it was a collusion with Chubais to by pass legitimate government agencies and circumvent the new parliament of the Russian Federation that concentrated businesses into a small number of hands with the side benefit of personally enriching members of the HIID. Just one example: a member had his girl friend set up a mutual fund in Russia. The first one in Russia. Some members of HIID set up a private consulting firm with taxpayer money.
The HIID was not monitored by the General Accounting Office. After all these are professors & other professional from the prestigious Harvard University! Also members has a close relationship with the Russian government so they could benefit from inside information when trading on the new Russian stock market. Surely no conflict of interest there!
More here about Russian Aid Contraversy:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Institute_for_Internat…
And here:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-russia-…
HIID was eventually brought down by its own corruption scandal. In 1997, it was revealed that two of the institute’s leading figures, economist Andrei Shleifer and lawyer Jonathan Hay, had abused their insider connections and information to make personal investments in Russia. In response to the allegations, USAID canceled a $14 million grant to HIID. Meanwhile, Harvard dissolved the institute in 2000 and five years later was forced to pay the Department of Justice a $26.5 million settlement for breaching its contract with USAID.
US involvement facilitated the creation of the oligarch class within Russia.