Project title: The implementation of the WOMEN2030 programme in ARMENIA
Date: 18 June 2018
Venue: IBIS Yerevan Center Hotel, „Karin“ Conference Hall
Attendance: The meeting was attended by 27 participants representing national stakeholders, such as the Ministry of Health (MoH), Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, National SDG Innovation Lab, Armenian Statistical Service, International Organizations (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Armenia and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Armenia), academia (Armenian State Pedagogical University (ASPU)), Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and independent experts.
The meeting was organized by the Rural Sustainable Development Agricultural Foundation (Ruraldat) with Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment NGO (AWHHE). The meeting was moderated by Ruraldaf.
The aim of the policy meeting was to discuss:
- Input to the Armenian VNR based on priorities of stakeholders, and
- Creating a strategic partnerships across actors to support the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs at national level.
In the opening session representatives of the AWHHE NGO, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs welcomed participants of the meeting and stated importance of the SDGs implementation in Armenia. Furthermore, several issues were mentioned, such as cross-cutting issues between different goals (goals related to the overcoming poverty, gender equality and water and sanitation, unsafe water and health impact, etc.), civil society’s important role and engagement in the process of the implementation and reporting, needs to facilitate inputs from different CSO organizations.
The first session started by the presentation of Ms. Diana Harutyunyan. She introduced SDGs, their role for Armenia in the context of the climate change. Armenia has a history of drought, significant land degradation and active desertification processes. Frequent landslides, mudflows, floods and other natural hazards negatively impact infrastructure, agriculture and water resources, increasing the country’s vulnerability to climate variability and change. Forests are at risk due to increased aridity, which reduces growth rates and regeneration, making trees more susceptible to pests, diseases and forest fires.
Erik Gyulazyan, Director of the Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab, presented the process of the preparations of the Armenian Voluntary National Review (VNR) which will be presented to the United Nations High Level Political Forum (HLPF) 2018 by the Government of Armenia.
In September 2015, the Government of Armenia, (GoA) along with governments of all other member states of the United Nations, signed on to Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In May 2016, the GoA launched the MDGs wrap-up report and formally kicked off the SDGs nationalisation process with setting up also its architecture i.e., coordination structure, institutional framework and four inter-agency thematic working groups.
In June 2017, the GoA prepared its medium-term development programme, which established strong synergies with the SDGs. Furthermore, the GoA tasked its reform unit – Center for Strategic Initiatives (CSI) – to update the Armenian Development Strategy (ADS) transforming it to a long-term strategic development framework until 2030, incorporating into it emerging priorities and needs, integrating crosscutting and innovative approaches as both a vision and a methodological tool.
The invited consultant helped development of the first draft of the VNR which was circulated to key stakeholders for their comments and inputs. The VNR was not ready for the wider dissemination and discussion.
Ms. Karine Danielyan, Head of the Association “For Sustainable Human Development”, presented an overview of the preparation of SDGs; nationalization, civil society participation and priorities. CSOs can be involved in the process as expert organizations and work towards raising awareness of population on SDGs. She also raised issues related to the mining sector, urban development, over extraction of groundwater, droughts, endangered biodiversity, etc.
Ms. Sascha Gabizon, Executive Director of the WECF International introduced the 5-year EU-funded programme “Women2030”, its input to HLPF and some examples of VNR reports, such as Slovenia, Nepal and Albania. This was an introduction how shadow reports can be developed by civil society stakeholders based on local monitoring of the SDGs to strengthen input from national stakeholders into the Agenda2030 process.
Ms. Liana Margaryan and Alisa Savadyan from the National Water Partnership presented 2 projects on monitoring of the SDG6 implementation in Armenia and implementation of the SDG 6 by the integrated water resource management implementation.
Session 2: Group Discussions: What are key challenges and best practices in Armenia?
During this session 3 groups were formulated to address 3 SDG goals:
Group 1: SDG1 No poverty: End poverty in all its forms everywhere; inter-linkages
Group 2: SDG5 Gender equality: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girl; social inter-linkages
Group 3: SDG6 Clean water and sanitation: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; environmental inter-linkages
After intensive discussion participants agreed for the VNR recommendations and input for the VNR intervention. The following priorities were emerged:
– Phase out government support for unsustainable economic investments in particular in the mining area, and to make polluters pay (chemicals, heavy metals);
– Gender equality is still far for being achieved (SDG5) as Armenia has a particular low representation of women in higher level decision making;
– Hundreds of rural communities do not have access to safe water and sanitation, this should be a priority, including attention for menstrual hygiene management in schools and workplaces.
Resulting from the policy dialogue meeting organised as part of the global Women2030 program, following possible questions emerged which can be put by civil society to the Armenian government during the High Level Political Forum in July 2018:
1) Unsustainable economic sectors have received government support in the past, for example mining, whereas new sectors such as IT have not, can the Agenda2030 process help to inverse these prioritizations?
2) Armenia is increasingly a water-scarce country, and still has about 570 rural communities that have no drinking water and sanitation service providers, the situation for women and girls is particularly problematic as they require menstrual hygiene management policies, even though indicator 6.2.1 does not specify needs of women, girls and vulnerable groups, the target 6.2. does mention this, can the VNR reflect this as a priority area for action?
3) Municipal waste includes more and more plastics and other harmful substances that release harmful chemicals when burned and polluted the waterways with micro fibres that re-enter into the food-chain, and often waste management is seen as a cost, not as a potential source of resources, can the VNR reflect this as a priority area?
4) Women are the motor of Armenia economy, but are hardly represented in decision making positions, as traditional gender roles prevail, how can the VNR reflect the need for awareness raising and policies that help to create work-life-balance for women and men equality?
All participating organizations were interested to establish CSO platform/coalition on implementation of the SDGs.
