Aid disbursements to Bangladesh each year are over 1,000 times greater than the annual value of foreign investment in the country. Aid also finances more than 90% of state capital spending. The Bangladesh Development Aid Consortium meets annually to discuss aid spending under the auspices of the World Bank. One result of the level of aid is that Bangladesh has fallen into one of the traps of an aid-dependent economy: the large middle class has a vested interest in perpetuating a system that provides its members with lucrative contracts and access to external resources.
