A study on community-based advocacy in Armenia: the measuring and mapping out of outcomes

Abstract

Advocacy is commonly defined as the process in which a group or groups apply a set of skills and techniques for the purpose of influencing public decision-making. In the recent years the advocacy campaigns on a local level have become an efficient tool for community development and for achieving good governance. The observation of recent trends in developmental studies also shows that citizen participation, one of the forms of which is citizen-led participation, is not only a policy sought by development and donor agencies, but also a practice that should be enhanced by states to foster democratic governance. In 2012, Armenia joined the Additional Protocol to the European Charter of Local Self-Government on the right to participate in the affairs of a local authority. Under the commitments acquired by the document the Armenian shall provide enhanced guarantees for citizen participation in local communities. This event notably shows that Armenia is has set on the track of the worldwide path of directed to enhance the citizen participation as a measure of democratic progress. However, initially the practice of community-based advocacy was imported in Armenia by donor and development agencies. The study is an attempt to measure and map out the outcomes of the community-based advocacy campaigns in Armenian regions.