The award ceremony of the 2014 “Best Practice” of local communities took place on 20 January and the winning Armenian communities were awarded prizes.

The “Best Practice” component has been implemented within the framework of the project on “Support to consolidating local democracy in Armenia” implemented by the Council of Europe with the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations and funded by the Government of Denmark.

For the first time the “Best Practice” component as one of the priority projects of the Council of Europe Centre for Expertise for Local Government Reforms was implemented in Armenia.

The aim of the project was to discover, publicly recognize and replicate the best practice of Armenian communities in the three areas: encouragement of civil participation, pre-school and extracurricular education, development of arts and crafts.

The head of the Department of Democratic Institutions and Governance of the Council of Europe Alfonso Zardi opened the ceremony with welcome address.

Nor Erznka /Kotayq/ and Gomq /Vayots Dzor/ communities received the "Best Practice" award in "Encouragement of Civil Participation". Gandzaqar /Tavush/ and Zoravan /Kotayq/ communities received the "Best Practice" award in "Pre-school and extracurricular education".

The communities of Urcadzor /Ararat/ and Getap /Vayots Dzor/ were the winners of the «Best Practice» award in “Development of arts and crafts”.