Developing Advocacy Skills and Competencies for Armenian Business Associations

The training program was designed to respond to Armenian needs and current situation, as identified during an assessment conducted by representatives of the Regional office. Carmen Stanila, Deputy Director traveled to Yerevan in the fall of 2008 to meet the Armenian future beneficiaries of the training, to discuss about their needs and expectations and understand their challenges and opportunities.
Based on this diagnostic assessment, a training program was designed to suit the current interest of the Armenian associations and also to support their present activities. These entities, under the leadership of the Association for Foreign Investment Cooperation (AFIC), and with support from CIPE, are engaged in advocacy activities to modify SME legislation in Armenia.
During the seminar participants had access not only to modern concepts, but also to new approaches that helped enhance their practical managerial skills. The entire program was focused on sharing experiences; the participants became more aware of how they can improve their current activities through open forum discussions and exchange of experiences.
Corina Dragomirescu, the Advocacy Academy Senior Consultant and Camelia Bulat, CIPE Regional Office Program Director in their trainer capacity, chose to act as catalysts and mentors rather than trainers or tutors. In addition to developing new skills or acquiring knowledge, the participants discussed and validated their strategies and action plans with their peers, discovered new opportunities for cooperation and established new partnerships.

Diana Sargsyan, General Secretary of the Association of Armenian Freight Forwarders stated:

“For me as a General Secretary of AAFF the training was very useful, it helped me to organize the work. Sometimes you know the problem, but you have to analyze it first to see where it comes from, or you have so much services, but you don't distinguish which is the most important and urgent to do. And very often because of it you can forget about your Association's main mission. The trainings helped me to find the way how to analyze the problem, how to distinguish which services are more important. The Eisenhower method was also very efficient. I want also to add that some of topics I knew from my experience, and [it] would be very good if I could participate in these trainings before - in the beginning of my work as a General Secretary, in order to learn all this earlier - not from my experience, which took several years. Anyway, even no [the] trainings showed me that I am right now in my new strategy. Currently I use the training materials as a base of my strategy, it's always on my table”.

Gagik Poghossian, Deputy Chairman of the Board, Association for Foreign Investment Cooperation (AFIC) – CIPE partner in Armenia:
“CIPE training assistance to Armenian business associations conducted on March 24-26, 2009 was an important event aimed at supporting the development of member-based organizations to provide useful information and skills to their members and improve their advocacy activities. The sessions showed the high interest and need in such training among the auditorium and demonstrated its activism in understanding of the issues on development of business associations. The training program was also a good opportunity for exchange of opinions on business advocacy issues and consolidation of efforts for common objectives.
The program enhanced participating organizations’ capabilities to analyze, design, and implement association development strategies and to understand the need for coherent policies and regulatory frameworks that will support private sector development. The course equipped participants with updated and effective knowledge on association development issues and introduced them with modern techniques of membership recruitment and retention. It helped also to improve the skills of the staff of participating organizations on ways to clarify the private sector's message, interact with the media, and produce communications.
It is important to mention also that successful implementation of the program was conditioned by the training methods used by trainers which helped to expose participants and get them actively involved in a discussion of the concepts and tools regarding development of advocacy strategies. Program delivery was based on interactive group sessions led and facilitated by highly-qualified trainers Camelia Bulat and Corina Dragomirescu”.

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