It has launched a project to improve financial reporting in six Eastern European countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The Strengthening Auditing and Reporting in Countries of the Eastern Partnership (STAREP) programme is aimed at a broad range of stakeholders, including ministries of finance, the accounting profession and financial regulators. Better financial transparency can help businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, attract investment, the Bank said.

Samia Msadek, the World Bank’s director for operations, services and quality in Europe and Central Asia, said: ‘STAREP represents an exciting opportunity for the countries of the Eastern Partnership to work together in building financial reporting systems conducive to private sector development and shared prosperity.’

The programme places as much emphasis on building the institutions that are needed to operate new legislative frameworks, as it does on the design and content of accounting and auditing legislation, the Bank noted.

‘Helping professional accounting and auditing bodies fulfil their roles in establishing professional entry standards and discipline and modernising systems of professional education in the university sector and elsewhere form key parts of the new programme,’ it said.

STAREP will be managed by the World Bank’s Centre for Financial Reporting Reform, based in Vienna.