Ruben Sargsyan, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs and Boris Kharatyan, Deputy Chairman of the Confederation of Trade Unions of Armenia, in their opening remarks emphasized the importance of the ILO policy and normative framework for the development of national policies and for building strategic partnerships for employment with social partners.

Ramiro Pizarro, ILO Moscow Chief Technical Adviser, presented the newly published report “Two decades of national employment policies 2000-2020”, summarizing a brief history and lessons learnt in the application of the ILO Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No.122) . As Armenia is in the initial stage of drafting a new employment strategy, these lessons were particularly relevant. They showed that a policy design process helps to further develop the dialogue between governments, employers’ and workers organizations.

Anna Torriente, Head of the ILO Unit for Employment Policy and Tripartite Governance (NORMES, ILO Geneva), described how the ILO encourages its member states to adopt and keep under review the measures to be adopted to achieve the national employment objectives. Comprehensive, inclusive, gender-responsive and evidence-based employment policies that are based on participatory social dialogue can help countries build more resilient labour market institutions, she said.

Ruben Sargsyan, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, invited the participants to identify areas for enhanced cooperation as part of the implementation of the Armenian employment strategy 2022-26. As far as human capital development is concerned, the Government’s programme “Work Armenia” foresees strengthening the link between education and labour market and alleviation of the extreme poverty. The participants proposed a numbe of areas for future Armenia-ILO cooperation, including baseline assessment of labour market, programmes facilitating school-to-work transition and policies for activation of unemployed and inactive people, with a particular focus on women and youth.