NEWS

Today, an induction workshop kicked off in the UN House in Yerevan in the field of rural development and youth employment with participation of different national stakeholders. This one-day event took place within the framework of the "Coordinated Support to Accelerate Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)" initiative aimed at analyzing the issues of youth unemployment in rural areas and identification of the most urgent issues.

Millennium Acceleration Framework (MAF) provides national stakeholders with a systematic approach to identify and analyze bottlenecks that are causing MDGs to veer off-track or to advance too slowly. It then aims to generate shared diagnostics and to recommend comprehensive, collaborative and focused actions based on prioritized "acceleration" solutions.

The MAF does not replace existing, nationally-owned planning processes and frameworks. Rather, it draws upon them and seeks to complement them by helping identify actions and actors who could work together to speed up progress toward the identified MDGs. The principal added value of the MAF is to address challenges of other relevant sectors and to focus attention on collaborative solutions with identified roles for development stakeholders. The MAF is intended to be a relatively easy and straightforward way to build upon country knowledge and experiences that are needed to accelerate the MDG progress until 2015.

From the beginning of the MAF process, UNDP and UNIDO established a partnership to assist the Government of Armenia to develop an Action Plan in support of youth employment in rural areas. UNIDO\'s comparative advantage lies in the proven capacity to develop and successfully implement comprehensive interventions aimed at creating jobs for youth. It includes providing a comprehensive package of non-financial and financial services, enhancing youth business skills at institutional and enterprise level and facilitating access to finance, as well as promoting clusters to facilitate access to information, business support services, technologies and markets. MDG-MAF process will create synergies with ongoing UNIDO activities in the country, such as the SME-supported Revolving Fund established in the framework of the UNHSTF-financed project "Sustainable Livelihood for Socially Displaced and Local Families."

"The MAF exercise has a multi-sectoral nature. The employment generation needs and rural development perspectives in Armenia are best addressed when the intervention is multi-faceted, thus focusing not only on agricultural development, but also paying attention to other issues as well, such as enterprise development, education, governance and institution building for local authorities," said Mr. Dirk Boberg, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Armenia, welcoming the participants of the workshop.

UN Agencies involved in the MAF process will contribute by assisting in identifying bottlenecks and suggesting concrete solutions for the improvement of the business environment on the macro and micro-levels and support infrastructures, particularly for youth-led businesses, as well as for youth employability.

UNDP is well positioned in Armenia to design and implement integrated and enhanced approach to local development. Since 2001, a wide range of support to over 300 rural and urban communities in Armenia has been provided, including rehabilitation of social and economic infrastructure, increased access to public services, creation of income generation opportunities and access to finance for the poorest, building institutional capacity of local municipalities, etc.

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UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in 177 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations.
UNDP in Armenia has been established in March 1993 and supports the government to reach national development priorities and the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.