On June 13, Mr. Artashes Kirakosyan, Head of the Staff of the Ministry of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia, met with the representatives of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project and the representatives of the Coalition “CSOs for Sustainable and Transparent Energy Development”.

Ms Susanne Soghomonyan, the Coordinator of the Government-Civil Society Dialogue of the CCD project, presented the project “CSOs for a sustainable and transparent energy development,” which is aimed to implement the following:

Action 1.

Monitoring and improvement of the energy efficiency and climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives of LSGs;

• Development of Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Programs (SECCP) format,
• Development of SECCP automated computing and analytical package;
• Creation of Unified accountability and monitoring electronic, online platform,
• Arranging the online platform and organizing data entry and collection.

Action 2. Developing and/or improving and promoting public policies based on the
best practices of regulations and regulatory measures to ensure energy efficiency and renewable energy development in the procurement process of local self-government.

• Formation of a working group with competent authorities, private sector, local self-government bodies and experts ,
• Conducting joint discussions with competent authorities, private sector, local governments and experts,
• Developing a legislative reform package with the involvement of relevant experts.

Action 3. Enhancing participation of women’s groups in the control and monitoring of community activities in the field of energy efficiency, sustainable energy and climate change,

• Study and invitation to involve women experts in monitoring activities;
• Implementation of training and capacity-building training programs for women experts,
• Developing a database of women experts,
• Supplement the monitoring platform by women experts.

Artashes Kirakosyan stated that they are ready to form a working group and have direct meetings, discussions, and support the implementation of the project.

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 is funded by the European Union and launched on 15 December, 2016. Duration of the project is 34 months.

The main objective of the Project is to enhance the influence of CSOs on the public policy process, and the specific objectives are to strengthen the ability of CSOs to build coalitions and to strengthen the ability of CSOs to focus on constructive and strategic policy engagement with local and central government partners. The Project has a grant component, which anticipates providing sub-grants to the civil society organisations and CSO Coalitions (Networks).

The 9 target areas of the project are: Justice, Human Rights, Public Finance Management, Business, Education, Social sphere: Social inclusion of children with disabilities, Agriculture, Economy, and Energy.  It is anticipated to disclose the issues that exist in the sectors through Government – CSO constructive dialogue format with the competent authorities of the sector; develop, advocate and improve public policy programs through innovative ideas and solutions.