The EU Programs Administration Division (PAO) of the RA Ministry of Economic Development and Investments is a unit with the European Union and World Trade Organization Department. The PAO is acting as the counterpart of the European Union Delegation within the public administration system, it implements overall management of European Neighborhood instruments in Armenia, coordinates and controls the projects implemented within the ENPI, implements monitoring of all projects, provides the necessary consultation and support on implementation and usage of instruments and projects to all RA public administration authorities and other beneficiaries.

Particularly, the PAO coordinates the implementation of the following programs in Armenia:

- TWINNING which is a cooperation instrument between the EU member states and Armenian public administration authorities;

- TAIEX an instrument for technical assistance and information exchange;

- SIGMA which provides support to governance and management reforms;

- SOCIEUX + an instrument which provides technical assistance in the sectors of social protection, labor and employment;

- Black Sea Basin Cross –border Cooperation Program which is directed to improvement of the quality of life of the citizens in the Black Sea region through sustainable development and environmental protection;

- Armenia – Georgia Regional Program which is implemented within the framework of the Eastern Partnership regional cooperation and enables the participating countries define and with joint efforts solve the problems in the borderline territories thus ensuring sustainable economic and social development in local level.

- The EU4Environment Programme aims to preserve natural capital and increase people’s environmental well-being in six Eastern Partnership countries.

To realize its objectives the PAO carries out the following functions:

- Support to the TWINNING program beneficiaries in the following phases: identification and further development of projects, their assessment and selection, preparation of the contracts, coordination of the projects’ implementation;

- Coordination of TAIEX events, particularly professional support in the process of drafting the applications, in-depth analysis and checkings of the applications to be submitted to the European Commission programe administration unit, control over the application process, overall and permanent monitoring of the quality of the implementation TAIEX projects and dissemination of information;

- Overall coordination of SIGMA projects, development and approval of annual work plan, assessment of SIGMA support applications prepared by the Armenian public administration authorities, submission of proposal to SIGMA team for approval, monitoring of ongoing SIGMA projects and evaluation of their results;

- In the framework of Black Sea Basin Cross-Border Cooperation Programme provision of invitations to the program beneficiaries to submit their requests, dissemination of information and explanations on the application rules and procedures, support to find partners, maintenance of small scale information data base of all interested parties based on each separate event;

- Awareness raising, training and general activities of assistance;

- Cooporation and exchange of information on the implementation of the EU assistance instruments with the partner institutions outside of Armenia;

- Control on the availability of the necessary resources of the involved parties both from the financial and management capacities’ perspectives;

- Establishment of an archive of data and materials of separate projects.