The knowledge of the Civil Society Organizations and Mass Media are very important for systematized fight against corruption in Armenia. The Armenian Young lawyers Association and Freedom of Information Center organized a three-day Anti-Corruption training for the CSOs and Media organizations of Yerevan in the framework of the European Union funded “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” project.
“We conduct these anti-corruption trainings all over Armenia. Around 100 Civil Society Organizations are our beneficiaries. This is the ninth anti-corruption training, and the fifth that is organized in Yerevan. At the average representatives from 10 CSOs and Media organizations participated in each training,” said the President of the Armenian Young Lawyers Association Mr. Karen Zadoyan, “Multifaceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project Manager in his opening speech.
Soon the finalized “Draft of the Republic of Armenia Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2014-2018” will be presented to the public attention.
The concept on fight against corruption in the public administration sphere foresees to reserve the coordination of anti-corruption reforms and control over their implementation in Armenia to the Anti-Corruption Council and provided only 2 places in it to the CSO representatives. In the opinion of the CSO representatives that participated in the seminar, representation of the public interest by only two NGO representatives in the Council is not enough.
“Representation by only two NGOs is really insufficient. The presence of at least five NGOs may bring to certain changes, because the NGOs ultimately raise the public voice,” Diana Makaryan, President of “Center for Training and Development of Social Servants” said.
“I believe that the NGOs should be represented in more number in general. It would be more precise if the Government does not participate, considering the fact that in case if a person should control something that he himself doe, then he shall not be able to control that,” Arshak Khachatryan, representative of “Mission Armenia” Charitable NGO.
“Two places are really not enough, much more non-governmental organizations should be involved, two are not enough, also there should be cooperation between the state and NGOs,” Victoria Shahinyan, from “Republican Union of Employers of Armenia” NGO said.
“We, the representatives of NGOs consider that this is really not enough, and does not provide opportunity for decisive voice, while the state gains opportunity to impede, as in most cases this does not satisfy them, because the corruption is in most cases behind the public bodies,” Gegham Grigoryan, representative of “Center for Social Technologies” NGO mentioned.
The schedule of the three-day training include principles of good governance, information about the notion of corruption, history of its development and reasons for its occurrences, the ways to conduct monitoring in the sphere, etc.
CSO and Media Organizations, who have completed the training successfully, will have opportunity to participate in the tender for small grants to undertake monitoring, watchdog activities and journalistic investigations.
You can see the list of CSOs and the media participants of the Anti-Corruption Training here.
