Armenia: Climate resilience

People in Need NGO representative office in Armenia with funding from the British Embassy Yerevan has initiated a project aiming to contribute to lasting reduction in single-use plastic consumption in Armenia. The main focus of the project with an inspiring name “Reduce! Reuse! Become a friend of Nature!” is to motivate people to switch from single-use plastic bags to a more sustainable alternative in form of more environmentally friendly reusable bags. The project’s target areas are towns of Goris and Kapan in the southern Syunik region.
So far only 7% of inhabitants of Syunik region shop with reusable bags, revealed a survey conducted in frames of the “Reduce! Reuse! Become a Friend of Nature!” project. 
 

To boost tourism, the economy and employment in the Syunik region of Armenia, People in Need has launched a project to develop a tourist trail called the “Trail of Saved Manuscripts”. The route will span approximately 250 km and facilitate exploration of many of the area’s impressive natural and heritage sites. Development of this trail will promote alternative, eco-friendly tourism in this area, which focuses on the rural communities inhabiting the area, enabling them to benefit sustainably from the growing influx of tourists, particularly through employment.

The trails will also increase economic opportunities for many of the approximately 10,000 people living along the route, as they are encouraged to develop tourism businesses. As part of the project, certain business initiatives will be selected for financial support. Some examples of such potential businesses include: home-based guesthouses and small restaurants; traditional crafts and food and beverage production; guide services; equipment rental including hiking, camping, fishing, bicycle and rock climbing equipment; horse-riding and more! Grantees will be given the greatest possible support to help them establish and develop their business.

Beyond increasing economic and employment opportunities, the project also aims to empower civil society in Syunik to take an active role in poverty reduction, planning and sustainable development at the local level. Civil society organizations and local authorities in Syunik will work together in creating incentives for sustainable development and job creation along the trail.

Difficult economic situation in Armenia affects people in towns as well as rural areas, and has contributed to the high unemployment rate. To tackle unemployment and economic inequalities, People in Need is providing long-term support for small and medium sized businesses in Armenia, with recent projects focusing on different strategies for job creation in the regions of Shirak and Syunik.

Amasia, a rural municipality in the Shirak region, is known for its long tradition of sheep rearing and traditional wool crafts. People in Need together with our partners the Women Resource Center Development Foundation, the Shirak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Amasia Municipality, have launched an initiative to revive and modernize the wool value chain and the art of wool crafts in the Shirak region to drive job creation and the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Through this initiative, we intend to create 60 jobs by establishing a wool-processing factory, increase the employability of 148 women and men through upskilling in wool crafts, and increase the competitiveness of 15 small and medium-sized enterprises along the wool value chain (from sheep shearing to the production of various woolen items, to distribution and branding).

People in Need (PIN) has initiated the "Transcaucasian Trail – Promoting Cross-Border Tourism" project to develop a new network of rural and adventure tourism actors across Georgia and Armenia and develop new hiking trails to connect them to the growing Transcaucasian Trail (TCT) initiative. Overall about 300 km of trail will be marked and mapped in both countries.

USAID financed this project through grant from the regional Economic Development, Governance and Enterprise Growth - EDGE project, and PIN Georgia is leading the implementation in a partnership with PIN Armenia and the Transcaucasian Trail NGOs in both Georgia and Armenia. PIN is bringing its Armenian experience of the “EU4Tourism: Outdoor adventures on the historic trails in Syunik” project as part of the Legends Trail, which then became a part of the Transcaucasian Trail in the Goris, Tatev, and Kapan communities.

In the framework of this project, new trails in Aragvi, Akhalkalaki (Georgia), and Lori, Shirak regions (Armenia) will be developed and marked as part of the Transcaucasian Trail. The newly developed trails will act as a “honeypot” in the Caucasus to attract new visitors to Georgian and Armenian rural areas. Local enterprises will receive capacity building, and promotional resources to maximize the business opportunities this brings. The project will seek to identify those small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have been forced to downsize because of the COVID-19 economic downturn and support them to increase local employment opportunities.

A key focus of the project is networking and sustainability. Local Action Groups (LAGs) in Georgia and Women Resource Centers (WRCs) in Armenia will play a vital role in bringing together key stakeholders from public, private, and civil society sectors in their respective regions. They will facilitate initial buy-in for the activities, and coordinate trail maintenance in the future.

Social services provided by the state are still at a very low level in Armenia. Social workers lack the necessary qualifications and experience and the services offered thus often fail to provide the necessary level of service to clients. Under projects aimed at the repatriation of returnees from abroad, People in Need provided social and legal counselling in five regional resource centres in the following regions: Gegharkunik, Shirak, Kotayk, Lori and Yerevan, areas suffering from the highest rate of migration between 2009 and 2012. The current follow-up project continues providing support through migration information and counselling resource centres in the following Armenian regions: Ararat, Armavir, Vayots Dzor and Syunik.

In total as of April 2015, counselling services had been provided to over 7,000 beneficiaries. A helpline was another effective tool, offering advice to another 2,100 potential migrants and returnees.