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WHOM SHALL WE BELIEVE? HAS THE POVERTY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA REDUCED OR HAS IT INCREASED?
March 26 2013
"Armenia made further progress towards meeting the objectives of the
Action Plan in the area of macroeconomic policy, poverty reduction
and social cohesion, although there was limited action against
high-level corruption. The current framework of cooperation between
government and civil society is insufficient," this is an excerpt
from the 2012 European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) Country Progress
Report. It was made public on March 20. www.aravot.am inquired during
a conversation with specialists carrying out researches in the field
of economy whether the progress asserted by the ENP report could
be noticed in our country. Ara Galoyan, the economic commentator of
168 Hours, noted that even the government of the Republic of Armenia
hadn't officially stated about poverty reduction and stated: "It is
hard for me to say on what grounds they give such an assessment. I
haven't seen even our officials formally say that poverty has been
reduced. Therefore, I don't think that it is serious information. Our
officials do everything so that the economic growth exceeds inflation,
but in reality, it is not so. I haven't heard official statements about
poverty reduction; on the contrary, the poverty rate that reduced to
¼ has become roughly 1/3 again due to the crisis." In response to a
question what such statements of the outside world aimed at, Mr.
Galoyan said: "I don't view the phenomena from the political
perspective, but there may be political reasons too. Perhaps, that
publication was made for forming a certain positive image of the
economic leadership or for supporting it. For example, they may
hint at the fact that the new political leader of Armenia is more
suitable for them, or it is more pleasant to work with these economic
leaders and stuff like that." Tatul Manaseryan, an economist and the
manager of the Alternative research center, agreed that there had
been progress in terms of improving economic indexes, in particular,
in recent years, but we hadn't seen a desirable result in the area of
poverty reduction. We inquired whether he didn't see contradictions
between the ENP report and the Armenian reality. T. Manseryan replied:
"The problem is that economic growth cannot always be transformed into
human progress. This has been a problem for the Republic of Armenia
for a long time, since while elaborating models for the economic
progress of the Republic of Armenia, liberals or neoliberals have
given priority to improving indexes and not so much to improving
indexes of human development, and that tendency is still there. I
think that our main task should be to do everything necessary in
the next few years so that economic growth transforms into social
development. The poverty increased, but over the past year there
have been processes of overcoming poverty, and it is important to
turn those into regularity. What is mentioned by the ENP report is
based on the data we have given, and there is no contradiction or
coercion here." Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2013/03/26/153211/
© 1998 - 2013 Aravot - News from Armenia
March 26 2013
"Armenia made further progress towards meeting the objectives of the
Action Plan in the area of macroeconomic policy, poverty reduction
and social cohesion, although there was limited action against
high-level corruption. The current framework of cooperation between
government and civil society is insufficient," this is an excerpt
from the 2012 European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) Country Progress
Report. It was made public on March 20. www.aravot.am inquired during
a conversation with specialists carrying out researches in the field
of economy whether the progress asserted by the ENP report could
be noticed in our country. Ara Galoyan, the economic commentator of
168 Hours, noted that even the government of the Republic of Armenia
hadn't officially stated about poverty reduction and stated: "It is
hard for me to say on what grounds they give such an assessment. I
haven't seen even our officials formally say that poverty has been
reduced. Therefore, I don't think that it is serious information. Our
officials do everything so that the economic growth exceeds inflation,
but in reality, it is not so. I haven't heard official statements about
poverty reduction; on the contrary, the poverty rate that reduced to
¼ has become roughly 1/3 again due to the crisis." In response to a
question what such statements of the outside world aimed at, Mr.
Galoyan said: "I don't view the phenomena from the political
perspective, but there may be political reasons too. Perhaps, that
publication was made for forming a certain positive image of the
economic leadership or for supporting it. For example, they may
hint at the fact that the new political leader of Armenia is more
suitable for them, or it is more pleasant to work with these economic
leaders and stuff like that." Tatul Manaseryan, an economist and the
manager of the Alternative research center, agreed that there had
been progress in terms of improving economic indexes, in particular,
in recent years, but we hadn't seen a desirable result in the area of
poverty reduction. We inquired whether he didn't see contradictions
between the ENP report and the Armenian reality. T. Manseryan replied:
"The problem is that economic growth cannot always be transformed into
human progress. This has been a problem for the Republic of Armenia
for a long time, since while elaborating models for the economic
progress of the Republic of Armenia, liberals or neoliberals have
given priority to improving indexes and not so much to improving
indexes of human development, and that tendency is still there. I
think that our main task should be to do everything necessary in
the next few years so that economic growth transforms into social
development. The poverty increased, but over the past year there
have been processes of overcoming poverty, and it is important to
turn those into regularity. What is mentioned by the ENP report is
based on the data we have given, and there is no contradiction or
coercion here." Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
Read more at: http://en.aravot.am/2013/03/26/153211/
© 1998 - 2013 Aravot - News from Armenia