Rural Poverty Eradication Programme

The Strategic Objective

The strategic objective is to begin eradicating rural poverty in Armenia by supporting Armenia’s border villages and enabling their sustainability and viability, thus strengthening our geostrategic and economic security.

Sustainable development has many objectives and development policies and direction are interdependent. Our plan will seek to provide a cohesive framework to development in rural Armenia to enable villages to become economically self-sustaining, and to provide them with multifaceted, concentrated human, financial and technical support.

Our program will be built on three pillars – building infrastructure and protecting the environment, facilitating economic development, and promoting democratic institutions through community engagement.

First, infrastructure and environment: Most rural communities lack basic infrastructure and services. Without adequate financing, the infrastructure inherited from the Soviet period has deteriorated significantly, there has been a degradation of services and untold environmental damage. Such conditions in turn reduce incomes and increase poverty. This program will bring irrigation water, drinking water, paved roads, gas and electricity, access to health care, education, telephone, television and internet services to every village.

Economic development. Through public-private partnership, we will work to identify the comparative and competitive advantages of each community and ease bureaucratic impediments to development. We seek to introduce technical advice, skills training and micro financing practices to spur small private enterprises and personal initiatives in the villages. We seek to connect the economic activities in the villages to their surrounding region and greater regional centers to promote their long term sustainability. We also seek to connect economic opportunities in those villages with various investors or donors to promote viable partnerships.

Through a participatory process where the local community creates, revises, and strives to realize their vision, through a program that operates with transparency and accountability, democratic processes and institutions will be strengthened at the most important local community level. Through engagement at all levels of the process, the local community will take ownership of the program and take charge of their and their village’s future.

Governance and Implementation

Since independence, Armenia has benefited from a variety of humanitarian and development programs, initiated and managed by various international and local agencies, as well as by Diaspora individuals and organizations. These efforts have been critical in providing immediate assistance to those in need of a safety net and in introducing much needed western concepts and practices. Many of the current programs are already engaged in securing infrastructure or supporting development. Some are putting in irrigation lines, others are improving schools, some are providing health services, others are assisting with small and medium enterprise development. This program will partner with them and collaborate so we can collectively make more strategic use of our investments and be more successful in our outcomes.

A public-private compact led by the Government of Armenia will include the large Armenian Diaspora, as well as Armenia’s business community and international agencies. Together, they will form an international governing body made of up officials, experts and donors who will provide general oversight, monitoring and evaluation. The UNDP and the Armenia Fund are both prepared to partner in channeling funding and participating in program implementation.

We are presently conducting a preliminary needs assessment of the 159 border villages, based on methods utilized by international organizations. This is being accompanied by a study of all relevant government agencies to identify the international assistance currently provided to each of these villages by the donor community including the World Bank, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the United Nations, the Armenia Fund, the Armenian government’s own budget, and other individual programs.

Once this mapping is complete, we can prioritize and sequence the needs in each village. The full ‘picture’ of the needs of each village will be available as part of a comprehensive package as will the prospects for economic sustainability of each village. This data will allow us to identify the first set of villages ready for development assistance under this program.

Funding

The cost of revitalizing and stimulating each village will be broken down by project so as to make the process more transparent and also to make it easier to find donors at different levels. The initial estimates, depending on geography and community size indicate that it will take from $200,000 to $2 million to bring services and spur viable economic development in each village. An international donor will be sought to fund the overhead costs of independent management so that the project funds will go 100% to project implementation. Investment will be gradual, as each community incrementally meets its goals. Therefore, in most cases, these funds will be needed and utilized over a period of several years depending on the extent of the work involved.

A web-site which will provide information, photos and a plan for each village is already being developed. All planning and implementation activities will be regularly updated online in order to make this entire process from planning to fundraising to implementation as transparent as possible, with full public accountability.