On 16 November 2018, a business ombudsman’s office was opened in Gyumri in the scope of the “New Strategy for the Effective Development of the SME Sector of Armenia” project. The latter is implemented in the scope of a grant allocated by the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project funded by the European Union.
SME representatives, as well as representatives from the marz administration, the city hall and CSOs participated in the event. All parties attached importance to the activities of the institutions created and noted that they need to be widely spread.
An agreement was reached with representatives of the Shirak Marz Administration to organise other meetings with businessmen from different parts of the region to present the details of the activities of the ombudsman’s office. Apart from this, a meeting will also be organised with community heads to spread the information with their help.
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 have been provided 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.
