Rural Development in Armenia

Project Description

UNDP Regional Office (Bratislava) and UNDP Armenia commissioned Dr Ricardo Pinto to lead a team to design a project (programme document) dealing with rural development in an integrated manner. The goal of the five year long $5 million “Enhanced Support to Rural Development in the Tavush Region” project is to raise quality of life and the income levels in a cluster of six communities located in the Tavush marz (region). The goal is to be achieved by focusing on four aspects:

• Upstream policy support: to the Government of Armenia to develop cooperative legislation based on international best practice and undertake awareness raising of the value of cooperatives among farmers;
• Integrated community development: participative community development covering a cluster of 6 communities centred on the Lusadzor community in Tavush marz;
• Enhanced rural support: focusing on issues such as cooperative development, cold storage, small scale processing, low cost demonstration projects, yield & output improvement and access to market support;
• Labour market support: focusing on generating non-farm income, rapid re-training and start-ups support for target groups with no access to land.

Services Provided

• Expert function.
• Participation as Team Leader of project.
• Discussions and information collection in Yerevan and Tavush region.
• Stakeholder, donor, NGO, etc. meetings.
• Preparation of detailed programme document.
• Liaison with stakeholders and UNDP.