Wednesday, 2 March 2005
Today RA Prime Minister A. Margaryan has convened a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Armenia Millenium Challenge Account. The meeting discussed the revised and finalized draft of the program to be proposed to the U.S. government under the Millenium Challenge Program, which contained program description by priorities and program goals, the consultative process and the institutional framework. The statement of program goals includes a mention of the Armenian government's having presented such approaches as had been shaped in the process of intensive consultations held with the civil society, experts and business associations, as well as with the representatives of local self-government bodies on the proposed areas of support for the Millenium Challenge Account. It is stressed that the approaches in the Armenian proposal were based on the social and economic development priorities set out in the Strategic Paper for Poverty Reduction as adopted by the GoA in October, 2003.
RA Prime Minister A. Margaryan, Chairman of the Board, was reported that the present draft of the Armenian proposal contained a sufficiently detailed description of the projected activities supported with their clear-cut groundings. A special focus had been placed on the curbing of rural poverty with the promotion of sustained growth in the agricultural sector having been mentioned as a top priority. The improvement of the local road network features among the key components of the draft. This is supposed to be instrumental in ensuring the economic development of communities as it will help bring down transportation expenses. The latter circumstance, coupled with the bottlenecks existing in the irrigation system, is exercising an adverse effect on the commercialization and monetization indicators in the agricultural sector and is the chief reason behind their inadequate level. About 50.000 peasant farms all over Armenia are expected to benefit directly from the implementation of program components. These farms are supposed to be able to enhance thereby the rate of productivity of irrigated land. The creation of additional jobs is mentioned as a "side effect" of whole process.
The discussions resulted in a number of instructions, including the publication of the program upon its finalization in accordance with the established timetable.
