On 13 February, 2020, a meeting between the representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the Armenian Lawyers’ Association took place at the Ministry of Finance. The meeting was on the discussion of the Citizen Budget as part of the budgetary process. The expert discussion-meeting was attended by Ms Lusine Nalbandyan, ALA Lawyer/Expert, Ms Diana Aleksanyan, Intern on International Cooperation Affairs, Mr. John Zohrab, IMF Regional Adviser for Central Asia, Mr. Vahram Janvelyan, Economists at the IMF Resident Representative Office in Armenia, and Ms Karine gevorgyan, representative of the ministry of Finance.
The opinion of the experts of the ALA, as a structure that had made a great contribution to the citizen’s budget was highlighted during the meeting. During the discussion the participants touched upon the format and formal requirements of the citizen’s budget, as well as its structure and content. ALA expert Lusine Nalbandyan noted that it should be issued in the best interest of the citizens, be simple and accessible, free from nasty terminology and unnecessary information guided by the principle of “value for money”. That is to say, citizens need to know in which priority areas their taxes are invested, as citizens want to see concrete qualitative and quantitative performance indicators, thereby identifying what has changed in their lives. Economist of the International Monetary Fund Vahram Janvelyan suggested to enable citizens to get acquainted with the sectoral changes in their budget that they are interested in through technical solutions.