On the 30th of January, Lilit Chitchyan, the head of the social protection program department of the UN World Food Program, Mary Sargsyan, the project manager at “World Vision Armenia” organization, and Vahe Hovhannisyan, the project manager at “Strategic Development Agency” NGO, presented the “Resilience and Economic Recovery of Border Communities in Armenia” Project’s purpose and principles at the RA Gegharkunik Regional Administration.
The above-mentioned project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by the UN World Food Programme (UN WFP) in partnership with the World Vision Armenia (WVA), Child Development Foundation (CDF) and Strategic Development Agency (SDA). “Resilience and Economic Recovery of Border Communities in Armenia” Project aims to improve crisis resilience in the border settlements of Vardenis (Gegharkunik), Sisian (Syunik), and Jermuk (Vayots Dzor) communities by providing humanitarian and economic support.
In the Gegharkunik region, the Project covers 9 settlements of Vardenis community, which were affected by the military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan in September 2022.
The project has two main components. The first component envisages the provision of social assistance to the conflict-affected families, and the second component covers the implementation of rehabilitation activities.
The first component of the project is to provide food assistance cards to vulnerable families in border settlements affected by the aggression. The kind of food assistance will be provided to 300 families. Currently, the registration phase of food-insecure households is being conducted.
Vahe Hovhannisyan, the project manager at the “Strategic Development Agency” NGO, presented the income-generating interventions to be implemented in the settlements of the Vardenis community, around 60 livestock farms will benefit from the project interventions.
Karen Sargsyan, the Governor of Gegharkunik Province welcomed the initiative and expressed readiness to provide the necessary support.
