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Rural poverty approaches, policies & strategies in Armenia

The Government of Armenia's strategic priorities include promoting sustainable economic growth through macroeconomic stability, developing the private sector, promoting human development and improving social safety nets. These priorities are set out in the government's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and also in the Draft Strategy for Sustainable Agricultural Development, prepared with the assistance of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization under a technical cooperation programme.

The strategy includes maintaining prudent fiscal policies and reforming the tax system, upgrading infrastructure and improving core public-sector functions. Armenia 's PRSP shifts the focus of poverty reduction from an assistance approach towards a development approach that promotes self-employment and private enterprises.

Because of the present importance of the agricultural sector to overall GDP and its potential as a source of increased income for poor rural people, agricultural development and growth are key instruments for reducing rural poverty. The objectives of Armenia 's agricultural development strategy are to:

• enable farmers to increase their incomes by increasing their productivity
• provide opportunities for increasing off-farm incomes for rural poor people
• improve food security for the country's urban population, and especially for the poorest people living in urban areas

To achieve these objectives the government is working towards improving efficiency in the agricultural and food sectors and developing import substitution and exports in sectors in which Armenia has a comparative advantage. The strategy focuses on economic and agricultural policies, efficiency and profitability of agricultural production, land use and natural resource management, agricultural support services to farmers (such as rural finance), agricultural marketing and processing, and food safety.

Source: IFAD