With support of the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) in Armenia advocates for a better environment for CSO taxation and a transparent and competitive way in which state funding is allocated to CSOs.
The recently published CSO Meter Armenia report has identified a number of legal and practical issues in this field. Though CSOs do have access to a variety of financial resources, their financial sustainability is among the weakest areas of CSO sustainability in Armenia. Many organisations rely on foreign funding and have limited income from local sources. Among other reasons, this is due to the lack of effective tax benefits for corporate and individual donors, as well as unequal treatment between businesses and CSOs engaged in economic activities. Another issue is in relation to state support: although a number of CSOs receive support from state budget for their projects and services, the procedure of state funding is usually neither competitive, nor transparent.
Within the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Initiative, the government has committed to improve state funding procedures to ensure better transparency and competitiveness of state grants. Taking this opportunity, TIAC has initiated some follow-up activities to promote the recommendations highlighted in CSO Meter report and advocate for better legal regulations in CSO taxation and state funding areas.
In November 2019, TIAC representatives and Luben Panov from ECNL met with a number of government stakeholders to present the issue and identify perspectives of further collaboration towards expected reforms. TIAC and ECNL also met CSOs working in the area of strengthening CSO capacities and improving enabling environment to discuss advocacy priorities. CSOs highlighted a need for joint advocacy efforts and agreed on further actions to be taken.
TIAC keeps facilitating further collaboration within the CSO sector and maintaining communication with state representatives to push for the reforms needed to improve CSO financial viability and access to funding in Armenia.