PROMOTING SOCIAL WELL-BEING AND IMPROVING THE DEMOGRAPHIC SITUATION 7.30 Armenia has set itself the goal of attaining public well-being and solidarity through human rights-centered social policy. 7.31 We are committed to substantially reducing poverty levels and eradicating extreme poverty, as well as improving citizen welfare through structural reforms in social security programs and the establishment of an effective system to exercise social rights. We are committed to ensuring equal opportunities and social and economic inclusion for various social groups 7.32 To ensure social security, Armenia shall take steps directed at reducing unemployment, providing the population with permanent and temporary employment, improving living standards via job creation, and expanding the middle class. 7.33 We are committed to ensuring equal opportunities and social and economic inclusion for various social groups, including ensuring dignified aging, equality between women and men and violence prevention, as well as the effective protection of the rights of persons with disabilities and children. 7.34 Considering demography as an essential component of progressive development and security, Armenia has set the goal of stabilizing its population size and creating the prerequisites for demographic growth. 7.35 Armenia shall take precise steps toward increasing the birth rate and encouraging repatriation by ensuring prosperous and dignified living conditions, and a state-funded social safety net. DIRECTING INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL TOWARDS THE HIGH-TECH AND DEFENSE SECTORS 7.36 Armenia conducts a state policy of fostering intellectual potential, which aims to increase the resilience of the country’s security system and its further development. The multifaceted inclusion of scientific potential in all critical sectors, including defense, allows the continuation of their effective modernization and development. 7.37 In this context, we ascribe importance to the role of the public scientific-educational system in Armenia’s development as a high-tech center. The restructuring of the scientificeducational system, apart from achieving other objectives, shall allow us to incentivize excellence in research of dual-use high technologies, as well as increase the country’s competitiveness, and contribute to its overall security. NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY OF RA | 33