Wednesday, 12 April 2006
Today the Board of Trustees of the Armenia Millenium Challenge Program has met at the Office of Government under the chairmanship of Council Chairman, Republic of Armenia Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan.
Actively attended by representatives from 3 non-governmental organizations - observing Council members, the meeting has discussed questions concerning: the "Irrigated Agriculture" component of the Armenia Millenium Challenge Program, the competitive bid for the choice of an independent manager (consulting company) under the "From Water to Market" program component, the tendering process for purchase of consulting services under the "Infrastructure" component of Irrigated Agriculture sub-program, as well as the competitive bid for the choice of an independent manager (consulting company) for the assessment and design of roads under the "Restoration of Rural Roads" component. On the above 3 items, the Council decided to launch the tendering process in accordance with the procedure authorized by Millenium Challenge Account Corporation. All bids for preliminary qualification will be published on the website of the Armenia Millenium Challenge Program, "Hayastani Hanrapetoutune" newspaper and in "UNDB-online" and "dgMarket" electronic periodicals of United Nations.
Concerning agenda item 1, namely "From Water to Market" component of "Irrigated Agriculture" sub-program, it was noted that with over 60 thousand eventually interested local farmers, the program provided introduction of new technologies for agriculture development, increase of work efficiency and growth of the levels of agricultural output, sharing of know-how in market relations, post-harvest activities and processing, as well as provision of preferential lending to domestic farmers and establishment of pilot farms. Under the Infrastructure component, design of civil work for key water basins will be carried out. In accordance with another sub-program discussed at the meeting, referred to as "Restoration of Rural Roads," it was decided to start the study and planning of roads of primary importance to a total length of 943 km.
The Board of Trustees has also reviewed the implementation status of the assignments given at the previous session held on March 15, 2006.
