Speech By Noubar Afeyan, Armenia 2020

Honorable President Kocharian,
Honorable President Ghoukassian,
Your Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos Of All Armenians,
Your Holiness Aram I, Catholicos Of The Great House Of Cilicia,
Fellow participants of the Armenia-Diaspora Conference.

We have already heard from most if not all of the organizations operating in the Diaspora about their views, concerns and challenges.
Mine, as the last talk of this opening session, is dedicated neither to the past nor to the present, but instead to the future. That is to say, to a project dedicated to Armenia’s future success and prosperity.
But before moving on with my comments, let me read to you a poem written 60 years ago...

The Walnut Tree
There is a walnut tree growing in the vineyard at the very edge of the world. My people, you are like that huge ancient tree-- with branches blessed by the graces but sprawling over the small corner of land; roots and arms spread out and spilling your fruit to nourish foreign soils.
Those words are directed to Diasporan artists by the great writer Silva Kaputikian in 1946.
Our mission during this Armenia-Diaspora III Conference is to give “new answers to old questions”.
Today, after 60 years, instead of one walnut tree we have a huge orchard and different trees give harvest to different parts of the world: not only in culture, but also in education, in commerce, in medicine, in high technologies and in many other sectors.
We are celebrating this week the 15th anniversary of Armenia’s independence.
At this historic moment, the question is how to use this orchard. Can we enlarge our nation’s orchard in the future and help it bear fruits for the sake of our motherland?

Now let me present to you an overview of the “Armenia 2020” project.
The “Armenia 2020” project was started in 2002. Its originators include Armenians living in Armenia, Russia, Europe and North America. The group was formed adhoc, with a shared interest in Armenia’s future.
At the start, our project’s objective was to envision alternative scenarios of Armenia’s development by the year 2020 based on detailed analyses of specific opportunities and challenges.
Today we are actively pursuing the implementation of some of the results from our project.
The “Armenia 2020” Project is independent, and self-funded by its participants. The project has engaged several thousand Armenians, within Armenia and Diaspora through conferences, town hall meetings, surveys, research projects, etc.
We have also engaged some of the world’s top non-Armenian experts who are involved with country development strategies. Companies such as McKinsey & Company (the leading consulting company in the world for corporations and governments), think tanks such as the School of Political Culture in Moscow, and academics like Professor Michael Porter of Harvard University, who developed the framework used today in competitive strategy development throughout the world.
Together we have asked several general questions about the future:
What can Armenia become?
What should it become?
What will it become and why?
How will we get there?
You might ask…why focus on the year 2020 instead of 2006?
Don’t we have enough challenges today?
This is a fundamental issue. If you want to improve a situation, you can either ask which direction should I follow, or you can ask which destination do I want to reach?
Many of us, principals of this project, come from business backgrounds.
In our experience, if you are expecting modest improvements, it’s ok to focus on the immediate direction and pick the one that gives the best results.
But if you are expecting significant improvements over a long period of time, it is best to think about your destination, and only then decide on the best direction to reach it.

Never before in our recent history (and by that I mean the last several hundred years), have we had as a nation such an opportunity to ask where are we going and where we do want to reach.
Our history of persecution and oppression has left us experts at surviving. The challenge to the Armenian nation in the 21st century is whether we can transcend our past survivalist mind-set, and begin to build a future, with clear objectives, strategies and accountability.
To succeed, not just survive, we will need to excel as a nation.
Today many Armenians excel as individuals…
The next challenge is how to do so as a nation!
The “Armenia 2020” Project was established to begin to research these issues and to provide raw materials with which the leaders of the country, the private sector, the institutions and the public at large, both in Armenia and in the Diaspora, could consider their collective future and chart their respective courses.
To achieve this goal, the project has already gone through several phases:
Research and scenario planning
Strategic planning for competitiveness within economic sectors
Dissemination of the findings and beginning a national dialogue
We have also developed three specific recommendations from our work which I will mention at the end of my comments.
During the first phase, we undertook 14 research projects that were selected based on their importance in contemplating Armenia’s future. These included such diverse subjects as geopolitics, education, corruption, Diaspora-homeland issues, the role of the church in society, economic status and productivity, the role of oligarchs in the country, etc.
We also conducted extensive surveys to gauge the attitudes, mindsets and ambitions of the population in Armenia and Diaspora, in 2003 and again in 2005.
I don’t have the time to present this to you today, but I invite anyone who is interested in all of this research material to find it at our website which is www.armenia2020.org .
Allow me to mention only a couple of findings from the sociological research.
When asked to prioritize “national goals” for Armenia, the top three responses were:
Maintaining a stable economy
Having strong defense forces
And jobs for all who can work.
When asked who is responsible to ensure the country’s future success, the great majority expects this to be the job of the government.

We also measured a high level of distrust among the population towards each other and the government. Despite this we also measured a great degree of hope and optimism as well as a strong sense of national pride.
Finally, we asked in Armenia and in the Diaspora, to over 1500 people, what characterizes “being Armenian”.
The top answer we got was: “someone who believes in the future of Armenia”. Second answer was “someone who participates in the Armenian community”, and finally “someone who has Armenian Ancestors”. Living in Armenia, speaking the language, embracing the culture and food, practicing Christian faith, and many other factors were not rated highly.
Next the project undertook the development of several future scenarios based on extensive brainstorming between diverse groups of Armenians. Out of dozens of possibilities, there were four scenarios developed for the year 2020:
One where Armenia becomes much closer to Russia
One where Armenia joins the European Union
One where Armenia independently achieves rapid growth and prosperity
And one which maintains the current situation without any significant changes, a “status quo” scenario.
The goal of these four scenarios was to be analogous to the four poles in a map, North, South, East and West. In other words, scenarios by which to navigate the future.
Two of the scenarios project a future that is dependent on external forces, while the others “go it alone”.
When you consider the future, and try to choose among options, you quickly realize that there are decisions made today that will predispose us one way or the other - decisions that concern such things as regional peace, education reform, investment priorities, etc.
We also undertook to forecast what the adjusted GDP per capita of the country may become in the year 2020 following alternative growth models. From a base of $4,200 GDP per capita in 2003, we projected a range from the most pessimistic $6,000 to the most optimistic $12,000 in 2020.
The high number assumes the highest sustained growth rate over a 17 year period we could find, that of Singapore decades ago. To appreciate what this means, we can compare these figures to countries in 2003 with those GDP figures. $6,000 approximated Uruguay, while $12,000 was the level of Lithuania. To reach $12,000 we have to grow nearly 7% per year over the 17 year period ending in 2020.
Many in the audience may find this surprising, even depressing, as we all have much higher hopes for our homeland. We can do one of two things, we can either hope for a miracle, or get to work making sure we have strategies that might produce that type of sustained growth for such a long time.

Our project next took this challenge on…that is looking for ways the country can increase prosperity at a high rate? For this, we hired experts from McKinsey & Co., who systematically analyzed many sectors of the country’s economy, and identified certain ones that, based on the circumstances in Armenia, and based on examples from other countries, could be the basis for rapid growth.
Specifically the emphasis of this analysis was on those sectors where productivity and employment growth potential were the highest. If we become competitive in these spheres, first regionally then globally, the experts suggested we could expect sustained, high economic-growth.
Basically, we learned from the experience of others that competitiveness-based development is a powerful strategy to achieve growth in prosperity.
The specific sectors that rose to the top in this type of analysis were Information Technology (IT), Tourism, and secondarily Financial Services, Healthcare and Jewelry & Diamonds. In IT and Tourism, our project has developed detailed sector strategies for Armenia to become competitive. These involve what the government must do through legislation and other steps, and what the private sector can do to improve its productivity and access to global markets. Again those of you who are interested, all of this material is freely available.
With all of this research, the four scenarios and the detailed sector plans, our project entered a phase in 2004 of disseminating these findings and initiating a national dialogue about these issues. Since then, we have been engaged in a broad discussion on our future potential and choices, through the media, town-hall type meetings, conferences, through forming university-based clubs, and through many other channels.
This dialogue is ongoing and I suspect we will have chances to touch on these subjects during this conference.
Finally, let me describe where we are today and where we are headed.
We have developed plans for three related initiatives and strategies through which we believe Armenia can begin a second phase of growth, even while the first phase continues to produce the double-digit GDP growth we have had over the past six years.
These proposals relate to the government, the private sector, foreign donors and investors, as well as Diasporan Armenians as a whole.
First, we have recommended that there be, in Armenia, a National Competitiveness Council, bringing together the public and private sectors in a partnership.
This is a mechanism to focus on resources and strategies needed to compete and win in certain sectors where we have that chance.
Second, we believe there needs to be a fund created, call it the Armenia Competitiveness Trust, that combines the financial resources needed to invest in both companies and sector-wide initiatives, and to support the competitiveness strategy of Armenia. Investors in this fund can range from Diasporan Armenians, to development banks, and in-time, Armenia-based investors.

Finally, we believe there is a need to form a Global Armenian Network of contacts and influence. This network can allow companies within specific sectors, and the competitiveness council, to coordinate attracting major foreign companies and institutions as their partners. We know the Diaspora is filled with experts in many aspects of the economy that Armenia is developing. Connecting them into a network and then connecting that network to Armenia’s private sector will be a very important undertaking.
These three initiatives reinforce each other. Without the government’s involvement and leadership, it is hard to imagine a fund or a network of Armenian influence.
Conversely, without external resources, the government alone may not succeed in fostering competitiveness and growth in the promising sectors of the economy.
Let me close by commenting about what brings us here to this conference. We are all interested in the State of Armenia as well as the broader Nation of Armenia.
In many ways, we are all participants in this latest phase of Nation Building by Armenians that started 15 years ago.
We often define our national identity in historic terms.
Today, I invite you to define our national identity in futuristic terms.
During the next 15 years, let’s judge our success by where we can reach, not just what we used to be…so that the next generations will find meaning in their identity, both by looking at their past, and in their commitment to the future of Armenia, the Nation!