About Us

The Civic Advocacy Support Program (CASP) - a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program, implemented by Counterpart International, began its activities in September of 2004. The goal of CASP is to strengthen advocacy NGOs, which directly contributes to the USAID Intermediary Result of expanded civic participation and supports the USAID Strategic Objective (SO) 1 of improved democratic governance in Armenia.

To achieve this goal, CASP supports the development of strong intermediary service organizations (ISO) and non-governmental organizations (NGO) involved in advocacy, as integral components of Armenian civil society. All CASP activities consider long term sustainability as a key factor in a strong civil society and its organizations.

The four objective/task areas of CASP are:

1) ISO Development: Building the institutional capacity of three Armenian ISOs to provide and manage grants, training, and counseling to Armenian NGOs;

2) Core Advocacy NGO Development: Building the organizational and advocacy capacity of six national-level Armenian NGOs to fulfill their advocacy missions;

3) Advocacy Skills Building for Marz and Local Level NGOs: Strengthening the capacity of a broad-based group of Armenian NGOs to better analyze and articulate the needs of beneficiaries, and build their constituency for achieving policy reform by their action-based advocacy; and

4) Increasing Public Participation, Voter Awareness, and Transparency: Supporting Civil Society Organizations in promoting open, non-partisan election-specific initiatives that increase public participation, voter awareness, and transparency.

In addition to CASP's approach to a multi-dimensional process of advocacy, the project works with advocacy NGOs to address some critical issues. The ISO and advocacy grants program supports building the capacity of ISOs, national and local-level NGOs, and is designed to facilitate partner organizations' efforts to effectively communicate their message, as well as citizen-based actions.

Counterpart works with ISOs to provide them with necessary resources and assistance for building their capacity to provide a comprehensive package of services (e.g.: information, grants, training, and technical assistance) to Armenian NGOs.

In addition, CASP builds the capacity of ISOs and core advocacy partner NGOs in developing strategies for long-term sustainability and diversified funding.

Counterpart works with advocacy NGOs to address their critical needs. Through demand-driven technical assistance and grant support, CASP builds the capacity of national, regional and local-level NGOs to develop and implement effective advocacy campaigns by assessing priorities, building alliances, effectively communicating messages, and supporting citizen-bases actions.

Core institutional support grants to national level NGOs and advocacy initiative grants to marz and local level NGOs, along with the provision of demand-driven technical assistance have resulted in the development of effective advocacy campaigns.

In March 2006, USAID asked Counterpart International to extend the scope of CASP to include activities related to the upcoming 2007-2008 national elections in Armenia. This new component supports the participation and involvement of civil society organizations in the 2007 Parliamentary and 2008 Presidential elections in Armenia. Counterpart partners with CASP-supported ISOs in administering grant funds to support civil society organizations engaged in election activities.

Counterpart's integrated approach takes into account a large number of donor organizations and donor-assisted initiatives by Armenian groups, underscoring the importance of synergistic partnerships in program implementation.