On January 30, the public discussion of Phase 1 of the “Justice Sector Budget Monitoring and Analysis” sub-grant program was held at the Armenian National Agrarian University (ANAU).
The public discussion was attended by representatives from the National Assembly, Ministry of Finance, Commission on Prevention of Corruption, Human Rights Defender’s Office, and RA Anti-Corruption Committee, as well as CSO and media representatives and experts.
In total, 34 people participated in the public discussion. The opening remarks were made by Karen Zadoyan, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association NGO and Director of the “Budgets for Citizens” project. He presented the project’s objective, work completed within its framework, and the newly created www.budgets.am budget knowledge exchange platform.
The participants were also welcomed by Hrachya Zakoyan, Acting Rector of the Armenian National Agrarian University.
The first speaker at the discussion was Movses Aristakesyan, Director of the “Justice Sector Budget Monitoring and Analysis” sub-grant program and President of the “Economic Law Center” NGO.
Movses Aristakesyan presented on the topic “Implementation of International Participatory Budgeting Experience in Armenia.”
According to him, many countries’ governments have developed and implemented numerous concepts, strategic and sectoral programs to address issues related to transparency and accountability in public finance spending, improving management efficiency, and avoiding corruption risks in their use.
Constructive cooperation between authorities and civil society organizations (hereinafter CSOs) is highly valued in this work.
International experience, including that of Armenia, has shown that civil society initiative and capacity can face legal, institutional, and political obstacles.
These, combined with the general lack of publicly available information about budget issues, seriously hinder CSOs’ efforts to participate in discussions about the use of state resources.
From this perspective, international experience suggests that different policies are mainly applied in various countries worldwide to address these cooperation issues between authorities and CSOs in public finance management.
According to Aristakesyan, Armenian CSOs’ participation in the budgetary process is not yet very active. Thus, according to the report on discussions with interested civil society organizations in areas under the jurisdiction of applicant bodies regarding budget applications within the framework of the 2024-2026 MTEF draft (including RA 2024 state budget) development work, the discussions of the 2024-2026 MTEF draft are characterized by the following data.
Nune Arabachyan and Angela Kocharyan, representatives of the “Economic Law Center” NGO, presented a report on “The RA Justice Sector Simplified Budget for 2025 (based on program data).”
The RA 2025 state budget has been approved with revenues of 2,837.6 billion drams and expenditures of 3,441.6 billion drams by the law “On the State Budget of the Republic of Armenia for 2025.” The state budget deficit has been set at 604.0 billion drams.
Compared to the previous year, budget funds allocated to sector programs in the RA 2025 state budget expenditures have decreased by 0.16 percentage points and constitute 2.19 percent of state budget expenditures, compared to an average of 2.51 percent in 2020-2024. In other words, the share of budgetary funds allocated to the Sector in the 2025 state budget expenditures has decreased by 0.32 percent.
The public discussion participants asked numerous questions, which were answered by the speakers. Participants made speeches and expressed their satisfaction with the initiative and proper conduct of the public discussion.
This material has been prepared with the financial support of the European Union, within the framework of the “Justice Sector Budget Monitoring and Analysis” program implemented by the “Economic Law Center” NGO under a sub-grant provided through the “Budgets for Citizens” project operated by a consortium led by the Armenian Lawyers’ Association NGO.
The “Economic Law Center” NGO is responsible for the content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
