On 7 March 2019, the official ceremony of the establishment of the “Armenian National Health Council” Coalition took place.
The coalition was established in the scope of “The Programme of Upgrading Continuous Professional Development of Healthcare Providers in Armenia” which is implemented in the scope of a sub-grant allocated by the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project funded by the European Union.
Project Manager and Founder of the Armenian Association of Young Doctors Gevorg Grigoryan said in his welcome speech that the goal of the coalition was to monitor the process of implementing the state policy in the sector of healthcare, contribute to the improvement of the quality of healthcare, protection of the rights of healthcare workers and reduction of corruption risks in the sector of healthcare.
“Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project Manager, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association Karen Zadoyan attached importance to the sectoral policy of the coalition, the goal of viewing the problems in a complex and expressed a hope for the coalition to be useful for the development of the sector, both from the point of view of bettering the quality of life of both the population and medical workers.
Arkadi Sahakyan, the Chairman of the Governing Board of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia, also participated in the event. “I am sure that this platform is a new step in the area of protection of your rights, it will give a chance to consolidate around your issues. The provision on anti-corruption included in the declaration on the establishment of the coalition is more important,” he said.
We must mention that the “Armenian National Health Council” Coalition was established by 13 organisations which attach great importance to ensuring quality healthcare based on the principles of social justice and its equal availability to all groups of population in the entire republic.
The problems of improving the process of medical workers’ lifelong professional development and ensuring quality professional education Among the priorities of the coalition were mentioned as priorities.
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.
