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Liana Sayadyan

Etiquette lessons instead of transparency

Liana Sayadyan
Edik Baghdasaryan

On February 2 nd Hetq published an article titled "Two German foundations don't practice the transparency they preach," about the foundations' lack of transparency, or more precisely, their refusal to give out information. The article met with response among both international structures and the Armenian media. Last week two newspapers, Hayots Ashkhar and the Russian language Golos Armenii, made comments of their own on the work of the foundations, stressing, however, the political implications of the work and whispering hints about which political forces the foundations sympathize or cooperate with in Armenia.

Hetq has no political sympathies or antipathies; our only goal was to determine the level of transparency and efficiency of these foundations. In fact, we're not only interested in the German foundations. We've requested similar information from dozens of other international organizations in Armenia received appropriate responses from all of them.

Two weeks after the article appeared, we received responses from the Friedrich Naumann and Friedrich Ebert foundations as well. On February 21 st we received an E-mail from Wolfgang John, the Naumann Foundation's project manager for Romania , Bulgaria , Moldova , and the Caucasus. Wolfgang wrote that they hadn't provided us with the information because they weren't yet officially represented in Armenia , and that that policy would change as of April 1, 2005 , when the foundation started a new project for the South Caucasus in Tbilisi . As attachments to his E-mail, John sent a list of projects done in 2003 and 2004 and those foreseen for 2005, and also a list of their local partners, in German. He did not state, however, how much had been spent on each project, explaining only that the work of the Naumann Foundation in the South Caucasus is financed by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation & Development, and that they spend 50,000-60,000 euros annually on projects implemented in Armenia. "That ministry exercises very detailed financial control," John concluded his E-mail. He did not respond to our question of whether his foundation had given 250,000 dollars to an Armenian news outlet to promote liberal values, and if so, which one.

On February 17 th the regional representative of Friedrich Ebert foundation in the South Caucasus, Gunter Fichtner also wrote us. He explained that this foundation, too, is not yet officially represented in Armenia ("The registration of our Yerevan office is in process in accordance with the legal instructions of the Republic Armenia") and described the focus of their work as "The democratic and pluralistic public and political development of the South Caucasus , regional cooperation, and the region's integration with Europe ." Fichtner presented a list of Ebert's projects and partners, but like his colleague at Naumann, declined to discuss the financial side of the foundation's activity: "Every year 60,000-100,000 euros are granted on average; however, we do not give out information about our relations with our partners. That would violate generally accepted principles of economic and public relations, and good etiquette ," he wrote (italics ours).

We do not believe that Ebert Foundation can be a good example of democracy if it avoids providing transparency in the area of financial operations. The foundation is neither a company doing business nor a bank with rules regarding commercial or banking secrets.

It seems to us that these international organizations and foundations, which publish annoucements of their projects noting the cost of each one, and require that their Armenian colleagues also present financial reports, are the ones with poor etiquette. Perhaps it is the representatives of the German foundations who have been ignoring journalists' inquiries for months who need lessons.

Hetq will continue to work on this series. We are now trying to get the information that the German foundations have so diligently hidden from their local partners and from our sources. The local partners of both foundations are public organizations, required by law (the Law on Public Organizations of the Republic of Armenia, Article 4,16) to be open and transparent.

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