On 15 October 2018, the members of the Agricultural Alliance met with the RA Acting Minister of Agriculture Garnik Petrosyan.
During the meeting, the report on Town Hall workshops held by the Alliance and the International Centre for Human Development in 4 marzes of Armenia in August-September 2018 was presented to the minister. They agreed to organise the Farmers’ Congress together.
The initiative is implemented in the scope of the “Participatory Policies – Sustainable Agriculture” sub-grant project funded by the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project financed by the European Union.
The Congress which will become the second ministry-farmer dialogue platform where representatives of agricultural cooperatives, individual farmers have the opportunity to raise the problems they’re worried about to the responsible persons in the field of the RA Ministry of Agriculture and discuss their main solution approaches and mechanisms at the national level. This year, the issues raised during the previous 4 workshops will also be presented at the Farmers’ Congress.
The “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by a Consortium of civil society organisations, which are the Armenian Lawyers’ Association (lead organisation), Agora Central Europe (NGO based in the Czech Republic), the Armenian Centre for Democratic Education-CIVITAS, the International Centre for Human Development, the SME Cooperation Association and the Union of Communities of Armenia.
The project aims to enhance the influence of civil society organisations (CSOs) and CSO coalitions/networks on public policies in Armenia. This will allow organisations that are already working in sectoral coalitions to access additional resources, new groups of civil society experts to come together and to encourage them to place their causes on the local and national policy agenda, to identify common concerns and priorities and approach government bodies with constructive and strategic policy engagement initiatives.
The project will provide sub-grants to CSOs and CSO coalitions for developing public policies and bringing significant changes in the 9 target sectors selected within the project, including those of justice, human rights, public finance management, business, education, and the social sector: social inclusion of children with disabilities, agriculture, economy, and energy.
