On 29 May, 13 representatives of CSOs participating in the Civil Society Organizations (CSO) incubators in the framework of the EU funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project met with Mr. Vache Terteryan, the Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Development.

In his speech, the Deputy Minister noted that such a meeting provides optimism, “If everyone is able to participate in politics in the scope of his public interest, with new words, new approaches, and ideas, then our work will become more meaningful,” Vache Terteryan said.

CSO representatives discussed various issues with the Deputy Minister, addressing issues related to sport and youth issues in the provinces, development of social entrepreneurship, and various prior programs that have not yet been implemented.

“Have there been conversations and discussions with the new minister about the development of social entrepreneurship and whether you see the development of this sector as the most important mechanism to support Armenia’s territorial development,” Ms Satik Badeyan, President of the The Association of Social Enterprises of Armenia said.

Vache Tererian noted that meeting on ministry level should be held with the heads of social enterprises. “It is obviously a good thing and we should put it at the basis of our policies,” he said. According to the Deputy Minister, some enterprises have been opened and launched at different times, such as milk collection points, sewing workshops, and so on. And in case of social entrepreneurship, there is hope that such a fate will not be expected for these companies because they will have an inner motivation to develop their own businesses.

Lianna Asoyan, representative of Blejan NGO, raised the question whether regional development programs would continue to be the same or it would be possible to extract them from the paper version and implement them.

Vache Terteryan noted that in the case of different programs, the political will has reduced. “If we mentioned that no funding from the state budget would be provided, as the program had not passed through the socio-economic program and was not discussed in the regional council, we would take that step and if we had done this step, then the document would become true,” the Deputy Minister said.

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.