ArmInfo. By the decision of the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, a special commission will be created in Armenia to identify problems in the system of assessing the family needs, to increase its targeting and effectiveness. According to the official website of the government, the document was signed on September 29.
According to the decision of the head of the Cabinet, the commission, which will have to submit a report on the work done to the office of the Prime Minister on a quarterly terms, will be headed by the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia.
It should be noted that the ineffectiveness of the system for assessing the family needs, which was introduced in 1994, was discussed even under Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan. The problem was also addressed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, back in 2019, during a discussion on this topic, stating that the current system for assessing the family needs is not aimed at overcoming poverty, and the government's priority is to make assistance to socially disadvantaged families as targeted as possible.
The head of government stressed that state support should have a tangible impact on overcoming poverty and eradicating extreme poverty, that is, the new system should be focused on getting out of poverty, and not creating favorable conditions for staying in poverty.
"It is very important to highlight the strategic and ideological goal that we put at the heart of the initiative to reform the system. My assessment, perhaps a political one, is that the system for assessing the family needs and social assistance in Armenia, consciously or subconsciously, was aimed at preserving or maintaining poverty. That is, what problem do we solve when we give a person a social benefit? We give a poor person a social benefit so that he / she remains poor, because we say: look, if it suddenly becomes known that you have a cow and you receive milk, we will deprive you of benefits, you should not find a job, because if we find out, that you have found it and receive a salary, we will deprive you of benefits," he said on January 15, 2020 during a discussion in the government.