As an independent think tank in Armenia, and as a past GMF Black Sea Trust (BST) grant recipient, the Regional Studies Center (RSC) was invited to participate in the BST Advisory Board meeting in Yerevan. Convened from 18-21 November 2024, this meeting focused on the regional consequences of conflicts in the Black Sea region and assessed key challenges for civic actors in the countries of the wider region.
As an element of our participation, RSC Director Richard Giragosian spoke on 19 November at a session entitled “Civil Society in Times of Crises: The Case of Armenia” that examined how civil society in the countries of the Black Sea region is reacting to or coping with the many challenges their societies face, with additional assessments of the need for sustainability and measures for civil society to build a working relationship with state authorities without changing their fundamental nature of keeping governments accountable and transparent.
The attached presentation also included a set of specific recommendations to strengthen Armenian civil society as the country continues to struggle to sustain momentum in reform and democratization in a difficult new post-war reality. More specifically for Armenian civil society, the RSC presentation offered three core areas of recommendations: educating the citizenry utilizing new strategies; elevating the discourse using new tools; and empowering new faces to broaden the base of civil society.