MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
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PRESS AND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT
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Email: press@mfa.am:

PRESS RELEASE

09-09-2005

Minister Oskanian Participates in the Yerevan Launch of the UN Human
Development Report for 2005

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian joined UN Resident Representative
in Yerevan, Ms. Consuelo Vidal, to launch the 2005 Human Development Report.
This annual global survey is issued each year to identify the challenges
which face societies around the world. It gauges human development by
comparing life expectancy, income and education levels within each society,
and across the globe.

This year’s report is titled: International cooperation at a crossroads:
Aid, trade and security in an unequal world.

The Index indicates that Armenia has maintained its position and improved
somewhat, among the list of countries with Medium Human Development.
Armenia’s position is number 83.

Minister Oskanian addressed these and other issues in his statement (below).

Minister Vartan Oskanian’s Remarks at the Launch of the UN Human Development
Report 2005

Armenia looks forward to each year’s Development Report because it’s like a
report card. It tells us how we’re doing in three broad areas that reflect
quality of life: life expectancy, income and education.

Fortunately, each year, we have received a good report card, we have
recorded forward movement, we have recorded improvement. Compared with some
neighbors who don’t cease to remind us of their resources, compared to other
neighbors whose size dwarfs us, compared to countries of similar size and
location, we are doing better than expected.

In fact, without competing with our neighbors, we are winning in the areas
that count most for a society. We are ahead in most of the Millennium
Development Goals.

With our Poverty Reduction Strategy, with our national plan to tackle the
MDGs, with significant assistance from international organizations and
agencies, we have marked tremendous gains.

We should not underestimate these gains. But if we’re going to be fair and
forward-looking, then neither should we exaggerate them. We must look at the
promise of this index and see in it that there are gaps we must close.

Let’s be honest. We are not living the life we want to live. We must close
the gap between rich and poor, between the cities and the villages.

We don’t need to compete with our neighbors. But we must compete with
ourselves, striving to reach our own goals.

As the Development Index demonstrates, it’s not possible to improve and
increase human development without economic growth. Fortunately, we have
been marking accelerated economic growth. The challenge is to turn economic
success into human development advances.

We can do this if we target poverty reduction, boost democratic processes
and institutions, and harness the potential of the international assistance
community and the Diaspora. All three are doable. All three are necessary in
order to make a life of dignity possible for each Armenian.

First, We must target ways to accelerate poverty reduction. A society is
judged by how it deals with those most vulnerable. In Armenia, our most
vulnerable are those who cannot take drinking water for granted, cannot take
basic medicine and health care for granted. We cannot assume that everyone’s
parents and grandparents will have enough heat to make it through the
winter. In the villages, neither roads nor schools can be taken for granted.
In Armenia, poverty is concentrated in the rural areas. We must ensure that
our high economic growth trickles down to the individual families outside
Yerevan’s center and in the regions. So, economic development for us means
integrated rural development, it means identifying and encouraging the
conditions which favor development and enable unleashing production
capacity.

Second, we must turn democracy into a tool for development. Democratic
institutions and processes are not just goals. They are also means to
creating the necessary political and economic environment which lead to
distributed growth and dignified development. The cruelties inherent in the
process of massive economic readjustment which we have been undergoing have
led to a continuation of the sense of powerlessness on the part of ordinary
Armenians. Stable, consistent, transparent, strong democratic institutions
empower each citizen. Institutions which are egalitarian and predictable
will constrain the actions of the elite and prevent uneven playing fields.

Finally, we’ve been fortunate in the amount and type of aid that Armenia has
received since independence. Individual donor countries and major
international organizations, UNDP among them, have fueled Armenia’s economy
and advanced human development. But, this year’s Human Development Report is
subtitled: International cooperation at a crossroads. That is a signal to us
that it can’t be business as usual any longer. Coordinated giving, targeted
cooperation, wise mobilization of Diaspora and Armenia resources is what it
will take to push Armenia forward.

Forward. To the top of the human development index. We will not continue to
be satisfied at being ahead of our neighbors, in the middle of all of the
countries of the world. That is satisfactory today, because we have
demonstrated that against all odds, despite geography, in spite of history,
we know how to survive.

But tomorrowS Tomorrow, we want to be a 21st century country, not just with
schools and health centers and roads and jobs in every village and every
town, but with telephones, television and internet throughout the country.

In other words, we have a right to want a life of dignity that the
Constitution promises our children and our parents. And we have the
responsibility to build the country and the institutions which make such a
life possible.-0-