The Congress spokesperson on promoting public ethics and preventing corruption, Andrew Dawson, addressed the participants of the the conference on "Political integrity and ethics in local governance", on 4 March 2020 in Yerevan, Armenia.

"In order to tackle corruption you need concerted long term action covering all aspects of governance and accountability," said Mr. Dawson about what the Congress had in mind for the development of the roadmap of activities with six thematic reports on corruption related themes. These themes are: the abuse of administrative resources in election campaigns, public procurement, transparency, conflicts of interest and clientelism, protection of whisteblowers and nepotism.

He also mentioned the "European Code of Conduct for all Persons involved in Local and Regional Governance", adopted in November 2018. The Code of Conduct sets out the ethical principles and standards expected of all elected representatives in all 47 member states of the Council of Europe.

"Our activities in Armenia, which adopted a national anti-corruption strategy last year, are designed to provide direct support to local authorities in increasing transparency, applying open government principles and fight against corruption on all fronts," stated the Congress spokesperson.

This event is organised in the framework of the project “Strengthening the Communities Association of Armenia and Transparent, Participatory Local Governance in Armenia”. It is implemented by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, with the financial support of the Swiss government, in the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Armenia 2019-2022.