Public Administration in Armenia 2025

The Principles of Public Administration

Principle 1. A comprehensive, credible and sustainable public administration reform agenda is established and successfully implemented, fostering innovation and continuous improvement.

Although the Government put its Strategic Framework for public administration reform (PAR) in place in 2022, it has not established clear responsibilities and robust mechanisms to ensure regular follow up and implementation of the commitments in it. In 2025, the three-year operational plan is approaching its expiry date, but there is no reliable consolidated information on the outcomes, outputs or bottlenecks of PAR reform. This hinders evidence-informed remedial decisions, transparency and citizens’ awareness of progress on PAR. Revision of the regulatory framework for strategic planning in September 2025 envisages institutional, monitoring and co-ordination mechanisms, but these have yet to be established.

In 2022, the Government adopted its first PAR Strategy and the accompanying Roadmap for 2023-2025. The PAR Strategy serves as the overarching strategy for planning reforms across four core reform areas: policy development and co-ordination; public service and human resource management; organisation of public administration; and service delivery and digitalisation. However, the public financial management (PFM) area is not covered by the PAR agenda because the PFM Strategy expired in 2023, and a new one has not been prepared. The latest revision of the regulatory framework for strategic planning foresees the development of a comprehensive seven-year PAR strategy covering all core reform areas, including PFM. The preparation of a new comprehensive PAR Strategy has yet to begin which may affect its finalisation on time before the expiration of the existing framework.

PAR is prominently featured in the Government Programme 2021-2026 and the Armenia Transformation Strategy 2050, both of which set out ambitious goals to modernise policymaking, enhance public service delivery and strengthen public financial management. Yet, the implementation of PAR relies largely on external funding, with 88% of the estimated costs expected to be covered by donors. This raises concerns about the financial sustainability and ownership of PAR.

The quality of the PAR Strategy itself is limited by a weak situational analysis, missing outcome indicators and benchmarks, and incomplete and unclear costing of reform activities. Monitoring, reporting and evaluation mechanisms remain underdeveloped. PAR co-ordination responsibilities are not clearly defined, and annual reporting is either missing or too formalistic to effectively inform the Government on PAR progress. No reports were prepared for 2022 or 2023, and the 2024 report, submitted with delay, consists mainly of a list of administrative actions. Consequently, the Government lacks a reliable picture of actual reform progress and is unable to make informed decisions about necessary adjustments or resource reallocation.

Co-ordination mechanisms for PAR are not effectively and regularly applied. Political-level co‑ordination takes place sporadically through ad hoc thematic meetings with the Prime Minister, with no permanent forum or designated lead co-ordinating institution in place. The latest revision of the regulatory framework for strategic planning foresees the establishment of the working group chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister to co-ordinate the development and implementation of strategies which has yet to be formed in line with the new requirements. At the administrative level, no co-ordination body has been established, and while political responsibility is formally shared among three high-level officials, clear lines of accountability are lacking.

Engagement with civil society is limited to ad hoc meetings and online consultations on draft planning documents.

The Government has taken no visible steps to promote innovation or communicate PAR results proactively. Although the majority of public servants report that innovation is encouraged, there are no mechanisms to support, document or scale successful practices across the public administration.

Principle 1: A comprehensive, credible and sustainable public administration reform agenda is established and successfully implemented, fostering innovation and continuous improvement.

The PAR agenda is incomplete due to delays in the adoption of the new PFM Strategy, while the other areas are due to expire in 2025. The existing PAR planning document lacks clarity in defining success indicators and target values for some of its objectives. Overall political and institutional responsibilities have not been clearly defined, causing ambiguity in co-ordination and fragmented monitoring and reporting. Furthermore, the quality of monitoring, reporting and communication on reform progress is weak, while stakeholder engagement in the PAR process continues to be limited.

The Government prioritises PAR in several strategic documents. The Government Programme 2021‑20261 identifies institutional development as one of its six key focus areas. Furthermore, PAR is featured as one of the 16 strategic priorities in the Armenia Transformation Strategy 2050.2 Both documents outline specific objectives and reforms related to PAR, such as the development and implementation of high-quality policies, public engagement, efficient public finance management and the establishment of an effective, merit-based public service. PAR is further reinforced in the Rules of Procedure (RoP) of the Government, which provide for the development of six comprehensive strategies, including one dedicated to PAR.3

Although PAR is prominently featured in high-level political and strategic documents, the reform process remains heavily reliant on external funding: 88% of the estimated costs are expected to be covered by donor contributions. This, combined with insufficient PAR agenda co-ordination, signals lack of genuine PAR ownership and priority.

Delays have been observed in the adoption of planning documents for specific reform areas. The most recent PMF Strategy,4 adopted in 2019, expired in 2023. The remaining priority areas of public administration (policy development and co-ordination; public service and human resource management; organisation of public administration; and service delivery and digitalisation) are addressed in the PAR Strategy5 extending to 2030 and a detailed Roadmap, which will expire in 2025. However, the preparation of a new comprehensive PAR strategy in line with new strategic planning requirements has yet to begin, which may result in a prolonged policy gap.

The quality of the PAR Strategy and its two supporting documents – the Roadmap and the Results Framework for 2023-2025 – is not consistent. Individual reform measures and activities are assigned to specific institutions, with clearly defined deadlines, but the situational analysis is weak. It lists problems without explaining their root causes or presenting concrete data to support their identification. Although the Strategy sets out specific objectives, some of them lack outcome-level indicators, making it unclear how progress will be measured. Furthermore, where outcome-level indicators are identified, some do not have defined target values, resulting in the absence of concrete benchmarks for measuring progress.

The information on financial resources for reform activities is also incomplete, with only 25 out of 32 activities (78%) costed. While a source of funding is formally indicated for 94% of costed activities, some of the descriptions are vague (e.g. “state budget and other sources not prohibited by law”), without specifying the amounts from each source. Additionally, the overall approach to costing lacks clarity. In several cases, it is unclear whether financial resources are not needed or whether no additional funding is required because it has already been allocated. Detailed cost estimates are available only for some activities.

The alignment between the PAR Strategy and the Government Activities Plan 2021-20266 (GAP) could not be assessed because activities, especially legislative, are vaguely formulated.

There are no functioning mechanisms for overall management and co-ordination of PAR at either the political or administrative level. There is no dedicated political-level co-ordination forum or body. Instead, political-level discussions on PAR occur through ad hoc thematic government meetings convened as needed. Over the past three calendar years, three such meetings have taken place, in July 2023, December 2024 and January 2025. The infrequency of these meetings limits regular discussion and steering of implementation of the PAR Strategy. Revision of the strategic planning system envisages establishment of a working group chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister to steer the development and implementation of PAR strategy 7, but such a mechanism has yet to be established.

At the administrative level, co-ordination is absent, as no administrative body has been established to oversee implementation of the PAR Strategy.

The same applies to political and institutional responsibility. According to the PAR Strategy, political responsibility for strategy co-ordination is shared among three officials, two Deputy Prime Ministers and the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).8 However, it is unclear who holds the ultimate responsibility for overall co-ordination. No institution has been designated to oversee overall co‑ordination, monitoring and reporting of the PAR Strategy.

Significant shortcomings are evident in implementation, monitoring and reporting, and requirements for monitoring, reporting and evaluation are insufficiently defined. While the strategy envisages annual reports, interim progress reports after each phase (e.g. in 2026 for the 2023-2025 period) and a final evaluation report in 2031,9 institutional responsibilities for reporting and evaluation are not clearly assigned. In practice, annual monitoring reports on implementation of the PAR Strategy are neither prepared nor published on time. Reports for 2022 and 2023 have not been prepared at all. In 2024, the PAR Strategy report was prepared and published well beyond the required deadline by the Programme Expertise Department (PED) of the OPM, despite the fact that this function does not fall within its designated mandate.

The quality of the report is inadequate. It is highly formalistic, listing administrative steps taken without clarifying whether the activities were completed or reporting on the implementation of objectives and achievement of indicators. Hence, it was not possible to determine the exact implementation rate of PAR Strategy activities and objectives entering into the final year of implementation of the Roadmap. A practical consequence of such shortcomings is that the Government and stakeholders are unable to determine whether the planned objectives and activities are producing tangible results. Additionally, the Government misses the opportunity to take timely corrective measures when implementation deviates from the plan or when the activities undertaken fail to deliver the expected outcomes.

Co-operation with non-state actors has not improved since the last assessment. Several consultative meetings were held with non-state actors during the preparation and revision of the PAR Strategy. Engagement remains limited to online consultations on PAR planning documents. Non-state actors were not involved in working groups during the preparation of the PAR Strategy or the 2023 revision of its Roadmap, and they currently have no active role in monitoring PAR implementation.

Communication and the public dissemination of information related to PAR is also very limited. There is no dedicated website for PAR. Although the 2024 PAR Roadmap report has been published, it remains inaccessible, with no direct link, and no reports were prepared for previous years. As a result, only 32% of citizens agree that they have seen information on PAR over the previous six months. That share is comparable to the average of Western Balkan administrations, but in Armenia considerably more citizens disagreed when asked if they had government seen information related to PAR.

There is no evidence that special events, awards or activities are organised to proactively promote good practices related to innovative approaches in public administration. Similarly, it was not possible to assess the existence or effectiveness of policies to promote innovation in the public administration. Nevertheless, 67% of public servants perceive that good innovative approaches are being encouraged within the public administration.10 Additionally, 60% of them believe that new and innovative practices introduced by individual institutions are being shared across the broader public sector.11