Enforcing Democratic Achievements in Armenia through Open Data
Enforcing Democratic Achievements in Armenia through Open Data
About the project
The project seeks to support Armenia’s transformation process by making quality data on political, social and economic processes available and by engaging key state and non-state actors, and media representatives in its use, analysis, dissemination and application in policy-making. The project goal is to foster the achievement of democratic values of the recent unprecedented political transformation in Armenia through enhancing effective and targeted utilization of open data with a broader range of competent stakeholder accessibility that represent diverse institutions of state and non-state actors.
The main objective is to empower the project target groups from Yerevan and all other ten provinces of Armenia with a comprehensive and standard package of instrumental tools evolving their capacities of data collection, data processing, as well as targeted and diversified use of data.
The leading values of this project are based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the successful sustainable development agenda that requires partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society (SDG17 on strengthening the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development). Within this project, inclusive partnerships will be established upon SDG principles and values in order to generate shared vision and shared views that will benefit all the stakeholders involved in the project. Highlighting the SDGs is essential in carrying out the project, as it aims to make sustainable the culture of using open data in political decision-making and synergy between state and non-state actors.
The project will result in the empowerment and education of leaders and new cadres in state and non-state institutions and develop the culture of research-based and data-driven decision-making and implementation of projects, better suited to the needs of society and the country. As a result, access to data will become a means for demanding accountability and validation of actions taken by target groups in state and non-state institutions. With the final networking event (the closing forum), the project will build partnerships between the target groups to collaborate for better data use and data administration.
Target groups consist of state and non-state key actors from political, social and economic areas, including: representatives of ministries and adjunct bodies of the Government of Armenia, policy makers, local municipalities, mass media, community infrastructures, civil society organizations, watchdog agencies/ monitors on social-economic dynamics, corruption, food security, public policy, and other fields.
In particular, target audiences have been grouped into the following seven: local government, government (infrastructures representatives), media, civil society, think tanks/analytical centers, academicians/academic researchers, demography/statistical data producers.
The training courses of the target groups will be realized both in Yerevan and out of Yerevan (in other regions) to assure large coverage of beneficiaries. It is foreseen (subject to future design) that four (4) target groups will be reached in the regions (media, civil society, local government, academicians/academic researchers) and three (3) other groups in Yerevan. Training courses will serve particular needs of each target group. In the meantime each target group will do a stakeholder mapping and define what collaborative actions are needed to foster data democratization.
- Rapid update of available data-based/data-driven information in Armenia and globally on open data;
- Development of Action Plan based on the rapid update results;
- Open call for trainees’ enrolment; selection of/formation of training groups from the target groups;
- Capacity building trainings for the target groups on:
- Open Data, data interpretation and visualization;
- Archiving and processing of data;
- Data democratization with diversified content focus per target group;
- Identification of stakeholders by each of the target group in utilizing information from the trainings;
- Trainee self-assessment analysis will be conducted focusing on the practical usage of the tools gained by the participants;
- The data received will be compiled, analyzed, recommendations made and publicized in an anonymous form for relevant stakeholders. This will be in the form of a project (effectiveness) evaluation report that will provide important recommendations for follow-up activities;
- A joint final wrap-up Forum (networking event) will be organized by the end of the project to present the outcomes.