Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan participated in the 3rd Public Sector Innovation Conference, organized by the United Nations Development Programme’s Armenia Sustainable Development Goals Innovation Center.

The event was also attended by Cabinet members, diplomats, representatives of international organizations, local and international experts, representatives of civil society, and leaders in the innovation and technology sectors.

Before the event started, Nikol Pashinyan got acquainted with the technological solutions in the public administration sector paired with artificial intelligence at the COPA pavilion. It was presented that ParlOur, an open-source tool developed by COPA, aims to collect on one platform the speeches of deputies of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, legislative initiatives, committee sessions, votes and other parliamentary content. It allows citizens to understand, through thematic search, which deputy expressed what position, what initiatives he/she came up with and how he/she voted on various issues. The tool was created to make parliamentary processes more transparent, accessible, and analyzable. It aims to strengthen informed citizen participation and data-driven public oversight of political decisions.

Ahead of the award ceremony, the Prime Minister delivered a speech, welcoming everyone to the 3rd Public Sector Innovation Conference and noted: "First of all, I think it makes sense to record that the quality of public sector work very directly means the quality of public life. Perhaps the impression is that this interdependence is not always and not everywhere perceived. In order for us to make public life better, we must make public sector management better, and in order to make public sector management better, in general, there is a tool to make anything better: additional investments in that sector."

According to Nikol Pashinyan, there is another problem in improving the public sphere in reality: the public sphere is, at least on a subconscious and emotional level, somewhat demonized. “This is related to our historical experience, because what has our several hundred years of historical experience shown us: we have dealt with a public sphere that is oppressive, destructive, inhibiting, and disruptive. Such is our historical experience of the last 500 years, with certain exceptions. This perception continues to remain in our reality, while the reality is that the public sphere is the rail on which the train of our public life runs. We can make the biggest possible investments in a train, even gilding the seats and carriages of that train, but if proper investments are not made in the rails, that train will either simply not move or will crash very often, which in our reality, let's admit, happens very often," the Prime Minister said.

According to the Prime Minister, it is important to record that no citizen of the Republic of Armenia has and cannot have as much influence on his or her personal well-being as the public administration sector has on that citizen’s well-being. And therefore, changing the public attitude towards the public administration sector is one of the most important things to do. “I want to emphasize again that no, absolutely no family in the Republic of Armenia spends and cannot spend as much on its own well-being as the state budget of the Republic of Armenia and the community budget spend on the well-being of that same family. It is excluded, there is no such unique example in the Republic of Armenia. We do not have a single family in the Republic, not a single individual who spends more on his or her personal well-being than the state budget of the Republic of Armenia spends on the personal well-being of that same person. Every dram of tax paid by every citizen of the Republic of Armenia is returned to that citizen tenfold. This, by the way, is an accurate formula. If a citizen pays 1 dram, he gets back 10 drams, if a citizen pays 10 drams, he gets back 100 drams, if a citizen pays 100 drams, he gets back 1,000 drams," Nikol Pashinyan emphasized.

Referring to innovation in the public sector, the Prime Minister noted that innovation is education, because without education it is impossible to innovate. According to the Prime Minister, this is the reason why the Government’s policy for at least the last 1-1.5 years is aimed at making large investments in the public administration sector, introducing automated education systems. “We are making sure that education in the public sector becomes a motivation and that new motivations for work and innovation, new knowledge are acquired as a result of education. Today we have a situation when thousands of civil servants, thanks to these investments and programs, are addressing their education. After work, they participate in various educational programs, trainings to improve their qualifications, the quality of their work. This is done, first of all, to improve the lives of citizens of the Republic of Armenia and people living in Armenia. Any problem and any unresolved issue that we see today is a consequence of our own previously uninvested investments in the public administration sector.”

Summing up his speech, Nikol Pashinyan thanked the organizers of the conference and all those public sector workers who are engaged in their education, continuous improvement of their professional level, and encourage public sector workers to have additional motivation to improve their professional level: "I thank those who turn what they know into a public result, in the form of innovations in the public sector."

Next, the award ceremony took place. The four categories of the award ceremony are: “Digitally Driven Innovation”, “Technologically Driven Innovation”, “Human-Centered Innovation”, “Governance Innovation”. The goal of the Public Sector Innovators Award is to highlight innovation, recognize and value those people and teams who, through their daily work, improve the quality of public policies and services, as well as strengthen Armenia’s commitment to modern, mission-driven and people-centered governance.

Nikol Pashinyan presented the awards to the winners in the above-mentioned categories.