On 13 June, Mr. Karen Brutyan, the First Deputy Minister of Finance met with the representatives of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project and the representatives of the “Winnet Armenia” Network of Women Resource Centers, which was awarded a sub-grant in the Public Finance sector.

Ms Susanne Soghomonyan, the Coordinator of the Government-Civil Society Dialogue of the CCD project, presented the “Budget for Everyone” Project which should be implemented in the framework of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project, which will result in the following changes in 10 consolidated communities of 3 marzes in Armenia:

• Monitoring on key issues of Public policies and budgets will be implemented, and conclusions and recommendations will be submitted to relevant state authorities and local self-government bodies;
• Capacity building of CSOs, LSGs and other stakeholders in relevant sectors will be ensured, which in its turn will ensure raising the project efficiency and sustainability;
• Key issues of the in the key areas of the project will raised and development and improvement of public policies in the sectors will be ensured through the expert workshops and community meetings in “Town Hall” and “Chatham House” format.
• IT Experimental Application will be developed and implemented to assess the effectiveness of child and gender sensitive budgeting in communities.

Deputy Minister Karen Brutyan highlighted the implementation of this project and expressed readiness to support and provide consultative expert opinions. Regular meetings and discussions for the project implementation will be held as well.

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.