On 17 August 2018, a working meeting with RA Deputy Minister of Health Sergey Khachatryan took place in the scope of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project. The representatives of the “For Quality and Accessible Inclusive Education and Social Support” and the “Human Rights: Monitoring and Publicity” projects implemented in the scope of the sub-grants for coalitions were present at the meeting. Naira Arakelyan, the President of the “Armavir Development Centre” NGO and the lead of the first project, presented the project and the support they expected to receive from the RA Ministry of Health. Anush Aslanyan, the President of the “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities” NGO and a coalition member of the second project, presented the online tool prepared by them to protect the rights of persons with disabilities, at the same time asking the deputy minister some essential questions. Mr. Khachatryan replied to all the questions and expressed readiness to support the projects in solving problems.
The “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by a consortium of civil society organizations, which are the “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” NGO, Agora Central Europe o.p.s (an NGO from the Czech Republic), the “Armenian Center for Democratic Education-CIVITAS” NGO, the “International Center for Human Development” Public Organization, the “SME Cooperation Association” NGO and the Union of Communities of Armenia.
The overall objective of the project is to enhance the influence of CSOs and their coalitions (networks) on the public policy process. This will enable the organizations (that already work in target coalitions) to gain new resources, unite civil society experts and encourage them to participate in the formation of local and national policy agenda, identify the common problems and priorities and to apply to the government with constructive and strategic policy initiatives.
In the scope of the project, sub-grants will be allocated to CSOs and CSO coalitions, aiming at public policy development and achieving tangible results in the 9 target sectors: justice, human rights, public finance management, business, education, social sector: social inclusion of children with disabilities, agriculture, economy, energy.
