The “Budget for Everyone” project, implemented by the “Winnet Armenia” Network of Women Resource Centers, implemented within framework of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project, was discussed today during the meeting at the Ministry of Finance.
Mr. Karen Zadoyan, the CCD Project Manager, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, Ms Ruzanna Torozyan, the “Budget for Everyone” Project Manager, Mr. Karen Brutyan, the First Deputy Minister of Finance and the representatives of other subdivisions from the ministry attended the meeting.
Karen Zadoyan noted that although cooperation with the Ministry for the implementation of the project has been established for a long time, yet it needs to be further deepened. “The main addressee of every legal act regulating public relations is the citizen and his expectations. In my opinion, the main meaning of the simplified budget is that the civil society can participate in certain processes and express its expectations through specialized organizations,” he said.
Welcoming the participants, Deputy Minister Karen Brutyan noted that there are matching interest between the ministry and project implementers.
“The overlapping of our interests will give you the opportunity to use the resource you have to show or reveal those links.
We have what we have and it is called a simplified budget. Now we have to understand, who are the beneficiaries of this simplified budget? Let’s try to make a survey of users and understand what format is the most appropriate, to receive applications and information from government agencies,” he said.
Project Manager Ruzanna Torozyan presented the “Budget for Everyone” project. She noted that years of experience show that public discussions on online platforms are not effective.
“Particularly, in Goris community we have participated in the process of developing 5-year development plans and the processes where the actual discussions were held showed more effective results. Whereas participation in the online platforms was not active,” she mentioned.
Ruzanna Torozyan also presented their proposals they had elaborated.
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 have been provided 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.
