YEREVAN, June 27, /ARKA/. Social security agencies across Armenian fail to provide sufficient support to insecure families, Oleg Durgaryan, the head of the Center for the Consolidation and Assistance to Communities public organization, said at a conference on social protection in Armenia today.
He said a European Union-supported study revealed instances of ‘inadequate functioning of local social security agencies’ in four communities in different regions of the country. He said the poor work of these agencies have a significant negative impact on the social security situation in the country.
He said also in many cases the agencies are overloaded due to numerous problems and lack of adequate personnel, absence of systematic approach to ensuring communication of socially vulnerable families with the community.
According to him, the situation is also aggravated by the lack of adequate legislation to ensure social support to the communities. He added that there is no clear strategy for the agencies.
“Often, the social security agencies are busy not so much with social support for children and socially vulnerable families, but with the distribution of allowances, neglecting the humanistic approach,” said Durgaryan.
Armen Markaryan, a senior official of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, said the government plans to reform this sector dramatically in 2020-2021. He said meantime the government is taking steps to resolve the problems identified by experts.