Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Today the Youth Affairs Council by the Government met in a session at the Office of Government. Before proceeding to the questions of the agenda, the Prime Minister wished the Council members and all youth a Happy New Year and a Merry Christmas and spoke about some questions of state policy in the sphere of youth affairs. He said it to be symbolical that this year’s last event in the Government was dedicated to the questions of youth. In Tigran Sargsyan’s words, we live in a quickly changing and quickly “decreasing” world. A new world is being formed before our eyes: the system of values is changing, we are facing new challenges, with the most important task consisting in preparing our youth to meeting all these innovations to ensure that they have a modern thinking towards which the educational reform is directed. The Prime Minister expressed confidence that the new generation will manage to meet those targets aimed at the provision of a safe, stable and secure future for our people and for this very reason the problems of youth should be the focus of attention of the Government.
Proceeding to the agenda, the Council discussed and took notice of the report on the youth-related programs and actions carried out in 2008, as well as heard information on the priority programs and action areas for the year 2009. Then the Council discussed the course of performance of the assignments given at the previous session.
Concerning the first question of the agenda, Council Chairman, RA Deputy Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Arthur Pogosyan reported that budget allocations to the sphere of youth affairs under State policy priorities rose to AMD 342,845.6 million in 2008. There have been carried out about 150 different programs, with 60 programs realized in the marzes. According to the chairman of the Council, a special focus was placed upon the introduction and decentralization of the public model of sphere management and, in these frameworks, upon the activation of the efforts of regional youth centers, awareness raising questions. The implementation of the Young Leaders School Program was continued. A number of pan-Armenian actions were organized, including “Bazeh - 2008,” the 6-th pan-Armenian youth forum, a republican forum entitled “Youth: Reality and prospects,” a 3-rd Armenia – Artsah forum held in Stapanakert, a number of symposia etc. Fruitful was the cooperation with the international structures operational in Armenia, in particular, cooperation memorandums were signed with the OSCE, the Peace Corps, the Red Cross, the United Nations and other organizations. An appreciable achievement in the sphere of international cooperation is that at the October joint session of the CDEJ and the advisory committee Armenia‘s National Youth Report and the international reports prepared by the Council of Europe experts were adopted enabling Armenia to become the 13th country in the Council of Europe and the 1st in the CIS to have carried out such an in-depth research.
The speaker also touched upon the shortcomings noticed in the work of the Council during 2008.
With reference to the 2009 programs, the chairman of the Council mentioned the priorities set forward, namely the provision of access to quality education, creation of new jobs, improvement of youth’s social and economic status, ensuring a healthy way of life for young people which stem from the strategy of State youth policy for 2008-2010. A focus was placed upon regional programs and actions in line with the government’s marz proportional development policy. In these frameworks, State budget-supported 4 community centers will be created in Goris, Stepanavan, Vardenis and Aparan next year. In cooperation with the RA Ministry of Diaspora., the International Pan-Armenian Youth Center and the Pan-Armenian Youth Foundation, the realization of programs of all-republican and all-Armenian importance will be continued in 2009, aimed at the strengthening of Armenia-Diaspora ties and young people’s social activity.
In 2009, great attention will be given to the cooperation with the NKR through the implementation of joint youth-related programs, provision of organizational and professional assistance to public organizations in the NKR. The meeting highlighted the accomplishment of public awareness raising programs concerning public policies, the development of an action plan under the government-approved concept note on informal education in the Republic of Armenia, the realizations of a complex program referred to as “Housing Access for Young Families.” The need for drafting and adopting a law on youth was underlined during the meeting.
The Council also heard the report on the status of the previous session’s assignments. The report stated that the quasi-totality of these assignments was fulfilled in a timely manner.
