Thursday, 3 September 2020
Unified online petition platform launched in Armenia
A Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan.
Prior to discussing the agenda, the Deputy Prime Minister touched upon the introduction of new e-government tools. “As you may know, we are making consistent efforts with a view to introducing new e-government tools. According to the UN Electronic Government Development Index, Armenia ranked 68th among 193 countries in 2020, improving its position by 19 points as compared to the previous index. At the same time, Armenia is included in the list of countries with the highest ranking in the e-participation index.
With the help of e-government tools, we want to stimulate our citizens’ participation in the decision-making process. In this regard, I would like to inform you that a key e-democracy and participatory governance tool has been launched – the unified electronic platform for petitions - e-petition.am or հանրագիր.հայ. This is the Armenian version of change.org.
A petition is a socially important means of application, through which our citizens can submit proposals aimed at addressing economic, political, social and other problems, as well as for improving the applicable legal framework, or for dealing with the shortcomings identified in the activities of specific government officials and local government representatives.
Thus, the unified electronic platform will make it possible to submit individual and collective petitions online, support the initiatives so submitted, follow the application process and receive an electronic response to the petition. I wish to emphasize that the government will keep in the spotlight the processes taking place on this site,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.
The Government passed a decision on amending the rules of procedure of Armenia’s National Interests Fund. In accordance with the current regulations, the Fund can participate in such investment programs in which the amount of state participation is not less than USD 1 million, and not more than USD 2 million. The amendment envisages greater flexibility for the fund manager, allowing participation in investment programs within the range of 500 thousand to 4 million U.S. dollars.
The meeting next decided to hand over to regional medical organizations twenty-one ambulances procured as part of state budget funding for 2020, as well as the associated medical equipment.
Under another decision adopted today, 888 million drams will be disbursed for implementing the 17th anti-crisis program, which seeks to help save jobs amid the difficulties faced by some IT enterprises in Armenia. A total of 61 grants will be made available under the program.
The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports will receive funds to pay monthly benefits to winners and prize-winners of the Olympic Games, World and European Championships, to those athletes that have qualified for the 2021 Olympic Games, as well as to Armenian national teams’ coaches and doctors dealing with the events included in the program of the Olympic Games.
In conclusion, the Government decided to allocate funds necessary for the Armenian Police to get 150 patrol cars for the newly formed Patrol Service.
