2012 - ongoing

Local democracy in Armenia remains the Achilles hill of democratic transformations. Despite to consistent efforts of the Government of Armenia, development partners and civil society, the local democratic governance and equal participation of women and men in local decision making have not shown much progress for the past decades. To address the issue in 2012 ICHD started the project “Strengthening local capacities for local democracy in Armenia through institutionalizing effective and equal public participation in local decision making”. The project is part of a larger programme implemented by UNDP and funded by the European Union:  Women in local democracy.

The overarching goal of the project is to strengthen capacity and knowledge of local authorities on participatory, responsive, and gender-sensitive governance. It is anchored to a three-pillar strategy and three interlinked specific objectives: (i) enhance capacity and knowledge of local authorities to address local development issues and formulate policies and programs in inclusive, participatory, and gender-sensitive way; (ii) promote better social partnership, constructive dialogue and improved social cohesion through workshops and meetings of local authorities with the representatives of civil society and different community groups aimed to discuss local issues related to inequalities, inclusion/exclusion, responsive and transparent governance; and (iii) develop and apply a platform for channeling and discussing issues and recommendations between local and national levels.

In the result of the action knowledge and skills of key local actors on participatory, inclusive, responsive and gender-sensitive governance is enhanced through a series of trainings which focus on negotiation, leadership and facilitation skills which are to be applied in organization and implementation of public participation events. Next, the first-ever Local Community of Practice (CoP) “Gender and Democratic Governance”, comprising key local actors  has been cultivated which is already up and functioning. CoP serves as a vibrant platform for developing local partnerships and networking with other stakeholder. It allowed to improve processes of codification of results, knowledge management and documentation, as well as institutionalization and distribution of local success stories among key local actors, professional, academic and other relevant networks. All these activities have also enhanced social partnerships at the local level.  Two-way mechanisms for discussing and channeling recommendations between local and national levels have been developed and applied. All these results have been achieved through intensive trainings in all the regions of Armenia; CoP joint meetings and workshops; video-conferencing; mentoring; facilitated participatory discussions; compilation and consolidation of case studies; creation of a web-based platform for on-line thematic discussions and professional networking.