On 31 May, the activities carried out in the framework of the National Awareness Campaign for the Whistle-Blowing System was summarized at the event organized at Yerevan City Hall. As part of the nationwide campaign, public awareness and educational events involving community servants and other representatives were held in all regions of Armenia.

Deputy Minister of Justice Mr. Karen Karapetyan, Deputy Mayor of Yerevan Mr. Suren Grigoryan, Advisor to the Minister of Justice Ms Liana Tovmasyan and Program Manager of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association Ms Syuzanna Soghomonyan made opening remarks at the event. Anti-corruption experts of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association Ms Syuzanna Soghomonyan and Ms Mariam Zadoyan were the trainers of the courses.

Karen Karapetyan noted that both in the case of all newly introduced institutions, as well as the launch of the Whistle-Blowing System, the need for improvements appears during the organic development in parallel with the need to increase public awareness.

Suren Grigoryan highlighted the interdepartmental joint efforts aimed at raising awareness on the whistle-blowing system, noting the fact that the heads of administrative districts of Yerevan and their deputies were present at the training.

The Deputy Minister highly appreciated the involvement of international partners in the process: USAID, Council of Europe and German International Cooperation, and at the same time noted that the civil society partners had joined and expressed their willingness to consolidate efforts. The Deputy Minister informed that awareness activities were carried out in all regions of the Republic of Armenia, involving more than 300 representatives of the local governments.

Ms Liana Tovmasyan, advisor to the Minister of Justice and coordinator of the awareness campaign, noted that the initiative to hold the latest training-event in Yerevan is not accidental, considering that trainings have already been conducted in all regions of the Republic of Armenia and Yerevan summarizes the cycle aimed at raising the awareness of the representatives of the local governments and whish already gave positive results -  the number of reported cases has increased almost 10 times. The Adviser to the Minister also informed that the next step will be the implementation of various communication events and trainings in universities of Yerevan and marzes from September 2024.

The attendees expressed confidence that the implementation of the planned programs with joint efforts will be a great contribution to forming an intolerant attitude towards corruption among the society and implementing the commitment of the Government to fight against corruption.

Suyzanna Soghomonyan spoke about the scope of information subject to disclosure, emphasizing corruption crimes, elements of the welfare system, including situations of conflict of interest, arrangement on the issues of gift, the system of declaration, etc. The trainings were conducted with the analysis of specific situational cases as well.

Mariam Zadoyan spoke about the types and forms of reporting, and the whistle-blowing platform azdararir.am. The expert highlighted the legal and security guarantees that RA legislation and implemented legal instruments provide to whistleblowers in case of acting according to integrity standards.

This article was produced with the financial support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the European Union (EU) within the framework of the Governance Progress Board measure of the Eastern Partnership Regional Fund for Public Administration Reform project implemented by GIZ. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the Armenian Lawyers Association and do not necessarily reflect the views of the German Government or the EU.