Minister of Labor and Social Affairs reports back progress in welfare reforms

At a working meeting with the President of Armenia, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Artem Asatryan reported progress in the implementation of President’s instructions, including the work carried out in the field of social protection and the proposed systemic changes in this sphere.

Regarding the activities carried out in the field of pensions, welfare benefits and other allowances, Minister Asatryan dwelt on the efforts aimed at improving pensioner databases (cleaning up the registers), improving information infrastructures, as well as raising salaries and benefits for servicemen of specific categories and the members of their families. The Minister noted that the terms and procedures for allocation of temporary disability, maternity and childbirth benefits had been revised to make spending more targeted in this area.

The President instructed to speed up work on clarification of the records of length of service, minimize potential mistakes, raise the level of responsibility, and expand the range of online social services provided to citizens.

Artem Asatryan reported that the vulnerability assessment methodology and approaches are subject to fundamental revision, based on the imperative of providing employment to each member of beneficiary families and improving the targeting of social assistance programs.

The Minister’s report also featured the work done in the field of medical and social expertise, which provides for the introduction of a system of documented expertise based on a new model of disability assessment. This implies the use of specific criteria for disaggregating disease from disability in order to provide rehabilitation services to the target groups.

Touching upon the reforms underway in the sphere of child protection, Minister Asatryan advised that by this yearend the Ministry’s round-the-clock care facilities will have been reorganized into day care centers for child and family support.

The Minister further reported that the Labor Code is being amended, with work done to uphold the positive trends in the demographic situation and build up the necessary institutional framework in compliance with the presidential instruction on the implementation of Armenia’s strategy of demographic policy and the relevant action plan (2009-2035) as issued at the National Security Council’s meeting, which was held at the end of last year.

During the meeting, Artem Asatryan presented the programs aimed at increasing the efficiency of welfare programs, which provide for full introduction of state-of-the-art information technologies, automated monitoring and evaluation systems.