YEREVAN, DECEMBER 20, ARMENPRESS. The Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ara Babloyan received the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Armenia Judith Margareth Farnworth on December 20.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the parliament of Armenia, the Head of the parliament highly assessed the implementation of the programme directed to the capacity building of the National Assembly of Armenia during the period of the transition to the parliamentary democracy. The parliament Speaker thanked the Government of the United Kingdom, as the programme is implemented by the International Center for Human Development with the financial support of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Ara Babloyan underlined the importance of the seminars being held for the development of the skills of the MPs and the Staff, noting that they would promote the efficiency of the work, the institutional strengthening of the parliament and the formation of the control culture.

The Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia gladly documented that the programme is carried out in Armenia with the support of a country with a big experience of many years of the parliamentary governance. In his opinion, there is a lot to do, but going forward step by step it will be possible to reach desirable result.

Ambassador Judith Margareth Farnworth has noted that the desire of implementing programmes directed to the capacity building of the parliament. Touching upon the programme promoting the development of the skills and capacity building of the Staff of the National Assembly of Armenia, the Ambassador opined that it would help the Staff work more effective and organize the activities. Mrs. Farnworth noted that the National Assembly of Armenia will face the same challenges years after what today the British Parliament faces. The Ambassador emphasized the works for the awareness raising, due to which the citizens have a picture what values are laid on the basis of this or that bill.

To Judith Margareth Farnworth’s assessment, the progress is evident in Armenia: there are positive impulses, and the rating of the country has risen.

At the end of the meeting the interlocutors also touched upon organizational issues concerning to the cooperation programme.