Monday, 23 March 2009
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received UNICEF representative in Armenia Leili Moshibi-Jilani.
The Prime Minister expressed high appreciation of UNICEF’s more than 15-year-long activities in Armenia which are aimed at protecting children’s rights and improving health and living standards for them. Tigran Sargsyan noted that bilateral cooperation has some specificity amidst the ongoing global financial and economic downturn and went on to stress that the Government has already declared that all welfare programs, including the ones addressing children’s health, education and safety problems, must be protected in the 2009 State budget law as much as possible.
Ms. Leili Moshibi-Jilani advised that in cooperation with local agencies, the UNICEF has designed a new 6-year program for Armenia due to commence from 2010. Infant and maternity health care, food security, school and pre-school education for children, child abuse prevention were mentioned among the key areas addressed by said program. The Armenian government is expected to assist the UN with the implementation of program activities. Ms. Moshibi-Jilani further advised that an international conference is due to be held in Yerevan with the view of identifying possibilities for the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and others to support Armenia. The RA Prime Minister promised to state his approaches in his opening address to the conference.
The head of the Armenian government called Ms. Moshibi-Jilani’s attention towards the children’s status in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic by noting that the given issue was raised before the Fund as early as in 2005. He said that children know no frontiers worldwide and it would be unfair to ignore the needs of any generation wherever they are.
