On 10 August, training on the “Impact of raising the Level of the Lake Sevan Water on Agriculture”  for CSO incubators group was held in Gavar. The training was organised in the scope of the EU-funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project.

Ms Satik Badeyan, President of “Regional Development and Research Center” NGO facilitated the training. She first introduced the steps taken by their organization to raise the issue of the Lake Sevan and the achieved success. She spoke about the Lake Sevan and environmental and agricultural significance. “Lake Sevan is a natural plant, there is enough food for the fish fauna but there is no fish,” she said.

She drew the attention of the participants to artificial fish farms, which are located in Lake Sevan, where the fish is fed with artificial food, and as a result, Sevan suffers: the bogging phase begins.

At the end of the meeting, Ms Liana Makvetsyan, the Project Lawyer provided individual counseling to CSO representatives on the project activities and grants.

8 CSO representatives participated in the event.

Civil society organizations (CSO) incubators are aimed at promoting CSO capacity building and enhancing productivity.

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 aims to enhance the influence of civil society organisations (CSOs) and CSO coalitions/networks on public policies in Armenia. This will allow organisations that are already working in sectoral coalitions to access additional resources, new groups of civil society experts to come together and encourage place their causes on the local and national policy agenda, to identify common concerns and priorities and approach government bodies with constructive and strategic policy engagement initiatives.

The project will provide sub-grants to CSOs and CSO coalitions for developing public policies and bringing significant changes in the 9 target sectors selected within the project, including those of justice, education and business.