On 22 November 2018, Davit Aghajanyan from the Business Support Office, Armenian Business Coalition, and CCD Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist Narine Mezhlumyan from ALA met with representatives of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) in the scope of the “New Strategy for the Efficient Development of the SME Sector of Armenia” funded by the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project (CCD) financed by the European Union.
From the SRC, the following specialists participated in the meeting: Arthur Vardanyan and Lernik Harutyunyan, Deputy Heads of the SRC Administration Methodology, Procedures and Service Department, Mariam Manukyan, the Head of Unit 2 of Methodology of Taxes and Mandatory Payments of the SRC Administration Methodology, Procedures and Service Department.
During the meeting, the CCD project, its goals and the purpose of the meeting itself were presented. Then, Davit Aghajanyan went into more details on the “New Strategy for the Efficient Development of the SME Sector of Armenia” project, its goals, implementation process, the commitments of the working group created within the project and the possibilities of saving time and organising the work in a more coordinated and efficient manner in case of having a representative from the SRC.
The current issues in the SME sector were also discussed. Different opinions, arguments and counter-arguments were voiced. In the end, they concluded that there is a need for developing and introducing a new strategy, as well as for reforms, education and support of the sector.
During the meeting, SRC representatives promised to discuss the possibilities of getting involved in a working group and support its activities to the extent possible.
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.
