Commitment to Constructive Dialogue

Five-Day Training for CSO Coalitions entitled “How to Manage Strong Coalitions”

On 9 September 2019, in the scope of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project (CCD) funded by the European Union the five-day training entitled “How to Manage Strong Coalitions” was launched for the coalitions of civil society organisations created and/or strengthened within the CCD project. 

Welcome remarks were offered by CCD Project Manager, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association Karen Zadoyan who presented the project and the the training to the participants. In his words, the training was designed together with the “Agora Central Europe” non-governmental organisation. Karen Zadoyan also thanked his Czech partners for their great involvement in the organisation of the event and the work carried out. 

During the coming 5 days, the training will be held by 3 experts from the Czech Republic: Petr Čáp – the managing director of National Network of Local Action Groups; Kristýna Fantová – a freelance grant writer with 18 years of experience in the NGO sector both in the Czech Republic and internationally; Miroslava Vitásková – a graduate of international relations and European studies with 10 years of experience with Czech and international NGOs, as well as the business sector.

On the first day, the training participants will learn how to ensure the sustainability and resilience of coalitions, form an internal structure within a coalition, make decisions, and acquire funding. 

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 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.