On 15 April 2016, “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” Non-Governmental Organization (ALA) in cooperation with the CSOs group of Syunik marz of CSOs’ Anti-Corruption Coalition organized an Anti-Corruption event on the theme “Identification of Possible Corruption Risks in the Activity Sphere of Support Program for Protected Areas-Armenia Project” with participation of Syunik marz CSOs and Media. The event was organized in the scope of the EU funded “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project and was held at the Syunik Anti-Corruption center of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association.

Miss Ani Asatryan, the Regional Coordinator of “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association welcomed the participants.

Mr. Ashot Avagyan, Coordinator of Aarhus Center of Syunik Marz, Member of CSOs group of Syunik marz of CSOs’ Anti-Corruption Coalition, presented the report “Support Program for Protected Areas-Armenia five year project’s scope of activities and objectives.” He said that the main objective of the project is to enhance special protected areas and increase the social-economic development of the adjacent areas (communities). The project is implemented by the RA Ministry of Nature Protection. The project aims to create a Public Council, which would monitor the efficiency of project implementation, ensure its transparency and participate in the management of the protected areas.

Further, Miss Ani Asatryan, the Regional Coordinator of “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association presented the report on “Identification of Possible Corruption Risks in the Activity Sphere of Support Program for Protected Areas-Armenia Project.” She stressed that one of the key objective of implementation of the project is the cooperation with civil society organizations to support the program. However, the activities aimed at the creation of the Council provided by the project are being carried out in the wrong direction, because the Council is expected to include 25 members, of which only 2-4 places are allocated for CSO representatives. The vast majority of the remaining participants will be representatives of government agencies and local government bodies, which, of course, cannot be a guarantee of efficient and transparent work.

Mr. Artur Ghazaryan, President of the “Workers’ Rights Protection Association” NGO suggested to create an alternative Council with participation of CSO representatives, which will carry out supervision and monitoring of activities related to the “Support Program for Protected Areas-Armenia” five year project implementation, consistently raise the problems and offer solutions.

Iravaban.net