Promoting Direct Democracy for Strengthening Human Rights in Armenia

Since its independence, the Republic of Armenia (RA) has approved and adopted various strategic legal acts to protect human rights in Armenia as well as to fulfill international commitments. Despite the infrequent importance, the problem of the improper implementation of the mentioned documents has always been raised.

On 26 December 2019, the RA Government approved the National Strategy for the Protection of Human Rights and its Implementation Action Plan for the period of 2020-2022 (referred to as National Strategy.) From these perspectives, the implementation monitoring of the National Strategy as well as informing communities, citizens, and other stakeholders on the results of the monitoring, is pivotal.  Additionally, the CSO and youth engagement in policy-making and watchdog activities is crucial for every democratic and legal country․

Project activities:

• Study of the Swedish and Georgian experience on the methodology of the Human Rights-Based Approach, CSO engagement in policy-making as well as effective monitoring tools of policy implementation.
• Public engagement in the policy implementation process.
• Youth engagement in the policy implementation process, organization of the Republican Conference on the topic “The RA National Strategy on Human Rights Protection: Challenges and Perspectives.”
• Monitoring implementation of the National Strategy and identification of the gaps.
• Drafting of the monitoring report and recommendation packages aimed at the improvement of the implementation of the National Strategy and human rights protection.
• CSO-Government Dialogue Conference aimed at building consensus on the mentioned recommendations.

The evidence-based report with recommendations on the monitoring results will be developed with the purpose to improve the RA National Strategy and human rights protection, aimed at the adoption of the Human Rights-Based Approach policy in Armenia.