The poverty rate in Armenia in 2011 decreased by 0.8 percent compared to the previous year and was 35 percent. In the report Social Snapshot and Poverty in Armenia made with the technical assistance of the World Bank also says that in 2004-2011, the poverty rate fell from 54 percent to 35 percent. The level of extreme poverty fell by 16 percent.
The numbers put forward by the World Bank seem strange to Harutyun Mesropyan, an expert in governance.
“If we look at those numbers, it will turn out that since 1991 we should have become a better state than Singapour long ago. In the past 20 years, they have been showing every year that the situation in all fields has been improving in our country. I greatly doubt those numbers, because the methodology that has been used is in question. I have familiarized myself with the methodology of a few international organizations, I wouldn’t say that it is an effective methodology,” Mr. Mesropyan said to www.aravot.am, explaining that the calculations have always been rather far from the reality.
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The expert in governance doesn’t know the real poverty rate in Armenia: “I haven’t calculated…, but I look at it from a different perspective, what qualitative changes have been made; one can always play with numbers. I don’t see any qualitative change. For example, if the budget, the structure of imported and exported goods had been changed, there would have been changes, but everything is the same as before in our country.”
Let us remind that Vache Gabrielyan, the Minister of Finance, called the poverty rate put forward by the opposition, roughly 60 percent, “amateur” calculation.
We inquired of Mr. Mesropyan whether the opposition’s or the government’s index was more “amateur,” “No one can say that he knows the database rather correctly. The same opposition was in power at the time, and the roles were quite the opposite. I don’t care for the assessments on the political stage; the current and foreign powers that be are there, let them solve their arithmetical problems.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
