The Steering Committee of “Budgets for Citizens” Project, which is implemented with the support of the European Union by the Armenian Lawyers’ Association in cooperation with partners “Economic Development and Research Center” (EDRC) NGO and “Agora Central Europe” NGO (Czech Republic), held its 1st meeting on 19 December.
Heads and representatives of the organizations implementing the project, Ms Tatevik Davtyan, Cooperation Section Programme Officer of Delegation of the European Union to Armenia, as well as Ms Sveta Harosyan, Acting Head of the Analytical Methodology Section of the Budget Process Coordination of Social Programs Department of the RA Ministry of Finance, Ms Ani Avetisyan, Program Manager for Quantitative Research of Caucasus Research Resource Center – “Armenia” Foundation, Ms Arpine Hakobyan, President of the “NGO Center” Non-Governmental Organization, attended the meeting.
In her opening speech, Ms Tatevik Davtyan, positively assessed the involvement of other organizations that do not implement the project in such discussions.
Mr. Karen Zadoyan, “Budgets for Citizens” Action Lead, President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, presented the results of the baseline assessment on awareness, needs and use of budget information by CSOs.
He also presented the Budgets.am electronic platform for budget knowledge sharing and learning, which aims to provide publicly available budgetary information, its possibilities, educational sections, etc. According to Karen Zadoyan, the launch of information campaign, which is aimed to inform the citizens, CSO representatives and employees of the state bodies about the existing platform and its possibilities will be important as well. He stressed that the information will also find a place on social networks to reach a wider audience.
Ms Karine Harutyunyan, Executive Director of the “Economic Development and Research Center” NGO, presented an example from one of the already completed studies, “Study of the International and Armenian Experience of Presenting Budget Information”. She said that the citizens should know how the state resources are collected and in which directions they are spent. The availability of simple and accessible budget information will make it possible to increase public participation in budget processes as informed beneficiaries and hold the government accountable.
During the meeting, other activities carried out within the framework of the project were presented as well.
Representative of the Ministry of Finance Ms Sveta Harosyan noted the importance of such projevts in terms of the quality of budget preparation, amendments and recommendations to it, especially taking into account the fact that NGOs are carriers of the information on the need to allocate a section of funding from the budget to a particular sector. According to her, both the ministry and the public will benefit as a result of the civil society’s activity.
Ms Ani Avetisyan, representative of the Caucasus Research Resource Center – “Armenia” Foundation, noted that the Budgets.am electronic platform for budget knowledge sharing and learning will be useful for her both as a citizen, a representative of the foundation, but also as a lecturer. She mentioned that she will direct her students to the platform to get interesting and affordable information about budgets.
Arpine Hakobyan expressed her willingness to cooperate within the framework of the project.
Other activities carried out within the framework of the project as well as the work to be carried out in the coming year were discussed as well.