officials attended the forum. Vardan Barseghyan, Mayor of Vardenis and Georgy Yeremyan, Deputy Mayor of Aparan are in the Armenian delegation.The goal of the forum is to elaborate a municipal action strategy directed to fighting poverty, based on the experience of the municipalities during the 1997-2007 World Decade of Poverty Eradication.
At the plenary session the guarantees of 2005 World Summit of Millennium Development Goals and the local investments directed to its implementation were presented. Then the representatives of municipalities gave speeches telling about the local results of international decade of poverty eradication and about their experience.
The forum was announced open with participation of representatives of Spanish Royal House, Municipality of Valencia and Valencia region, Spanish Government, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and United Nations Development Program.
At the opening of the forum Artur Baghdasaryan, RA NA President, delivered a speech:
“We live in an era of intense globalization with different causes but similar consequences of poverty in different parts of the world. Globalization is increasingly accompanied by a process of decentralization and interdependence. It naturally makes us change our approaches of fighting poverty. In this context local authorities take on additional importance in combating poverty as the closest institutions to citizens. At the same time local authorities have little control over the causes of poverty and I would like to emphasize the importance of collective action and responsibility in eradicating poverty.
The Parliaments, national governments, civil society organizations and international development partners have a clear role to play by setting adequate legal and policy frameworks, providing guidance, mobilizing resources, channeling these resources to the targeted priorities and ensuring broad awareness of this disease. The major challenge before us is not the lack of understanding of the problems facing us. It is not definitely the lack of knowledge what needs to be done in order to get out of poverty. But, rather, it is how to build a conductive climate, in terms of policy, institutional and behavioral environment, which will facilitate citizen participation, investment, growth and development. The rest of the work remains the domain of, and dependent on, efforts on local level. I am sure this forum is an exceptional opportunity for the participating cities to obtain direct information on successful experiments on how to respond to poverty most efficiently.
This year marks the end of the International Decade of Eradication of Poverty. Hence, the Valencia forum gives us an opportunity, not only to remind ourselves of the task before us, but also to keep track of struggle as we move ahead. This forum provides us with an opportunity to assess the key outputs of our efforts, reflect on the findings and exchange ideas and strategies on the way forward. I find it to be an excellent opportunity for all the participating municipalities to reflect on the achievements made and the challenges encountered as well as to deliberate on the best ways of addressing these challenges. It is an excellent opportunity to build international partnerships and develop joint programs.
Combating poverty cannot be limited to material and financial assistance. Human rights violations and bad governance provide a fertile ground for poverty to grow. Without an avenue of local participation disadvantaged population cannot affect change and may find it impossible to improve their living conditions. I believe the forum is a brilliant opportunity for sharing successful programs and policies on how to increase citizen participation and transparency on local level.
As a country in transition Armenia still suffers enormously from poverty, perhaps, the most formidable enemy to its development. Already four Armenian cities are members of the World Alliance of Cities against Poverty. This is the first time Armenian cities are taking part in such a representative forum of global contacts and it is good opportunity to exchange information, develop city-to-city cooperation and broaden their access to the skills, cooperation and support available to them from different players in the development field.
As President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, President of the Parliament of the country having 1700 years of Christian traditions, I would like to invite all of you to Armenia, where in October of this year the National Assembly and the European Union will jointly organize international conference with participation of European different countries. The conference will be dedicated to the development of direct cooperation of the cities and will be an important investment in fighting poverty on local level for finding solutions.”
Then the works of the forum continued in the working groups.
The most important event of the day for Armenia during the forum was that among the cities of different countries, Gyumri, Aparan, Vardenis became members of the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty, which will give opportunities for the implementation of development programmes.
