MEASURE Evaluation Works to Improve the Lives of Vulnerable Children in Armenia

MEASURE Evaluation staff, and representatives of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), met with the Armenian Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Artem Asatryan, on June 13, 2017, to kick off a two-year program to help Armenia improve its child care programs.

YEREVAN, Republic of Armenia—MEASURE Evaluation staff, and representatives of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), met with the Armenian Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Artem Asatryan, on June 13, 2017, to kick off a two-year program to help Armenia improve its child care programs. This MEASURE Evaluation program will assess policies and systems that provide services to and protect Armenia’s children, especially children living, or at risk of living, in residential care or left without parental care. Efforts to reform these systems are ongoing, but, as Minister Asatryan said at the introductory meeting, “The reforms being implemented today need a truly profound assessment.”

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Artem Asatryan, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia and Deputy Minister Sona Harutyunyan

MEASURE Evaluation, funded by USAID, will work with USAID’s Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF), USAID/Armenia, and Armenian stakeholders to provide this assessment. Their efforts will build the capacity of Armenian stakeholders to carry out reform, with the goal of ensuring that every child in Armenia has a safe home.

MEASURE Evaluation staff, and consultant Hasmik Ghukasyan will help Armenian stakeholders assess and expedite national care reform efforts through several mechanisms. They will develop and implement a standardized framework to assess child protection systems and strategies, identify gaps in current reform efforts, and create plans to address these gaps. Through these interventions, they hope to improve capacity of M&E staff at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to assess progress and set future priorities. The program also aims to increase the number of officials trained to collect and use data on, improve processes for monitoring progress toward, and establish mechanisms for regular communication with other countries about care reform strategies.

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Deborah Grieser, USAID/Armenia Mission Director; Ani Manukyan, USAID/Armenia Project Management Specialist; Manana Mananyan, interpreter; Zulfiya Charyeva and Mari Hickmann, MEASURE Evaluation
MEASURE Evaluation is working with USAID/DCOF in four countries (Armenia, Ghana, Moldova, and Uganda) to support child protection reform and improve the safety, well-being, and development of vulnerable children by helping them gain or maintain appropriate, permanent, protective family care. The U.S Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity, which guides these efforts, was created to help provide children with the opportunity to grow up in the safest environment possible, free from exploitation.

“MEASURE Evaluation will bring to bear its expertise in M&E, data demand and use, data quality, health information system strengthening, and capacity building to help Armenia advance progress towards this goal,” says Zulfiya Charyeva, PhD, MEASURE Evaluation technical advisor for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) with Palladium. “MEASURE Evaluation works in countries around the world to strengthen child protection systems and support strong and healthy communities.” 

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