Community Poverty Reduction “Know How” Project
Community Poverty Reduction “Know How” Project
The Community Poverty Reduction “Know How” program seeks to identify the multidimensional aspects of poverty and strengthen the capacity of local governments and community organizations in Armenia to address it. The program is a three-year research-based intervention aiming to mitigate the causes and effects of poverty within the three particularly impoverished regions of Lori, Shirak, and Tavush, and learn from the experiences of the communities in these three regions under the program in order to facilitate models of poverty reduction that can be undertaken across the country. The program contains three stages including an initial multidimensional poverty assessment, capacity building of local actors to address the identified multidimensional aspects of poverty, and direct intervention through social entrepreneurship and policy advocacy and development. Each of these three stages of research, capacity building, and intervention build upon each other to contribute to the overall goal of mitigating multidimensional poverty in Armenia.
The project is implemented with the financial support of the European Union by a consortium of CRRC-Armenia, Eurasia Partnership Foundation, Economic Development and Research Center, and Hrant Matevossian Foundation.
Project objectives
Overall Objective: To reduce multidimensional poverty in Lori, Shirak, and Tavush;
Specific Objective 1: Improved understanding of the causes and effects of multidimensional poverty in Armenia;
Specific Objective 2: Enhanced civil society capacity to revitalize public discourse on poverty/inequality and to engage in initiatives to address root causes of poverty;
Specific Objective 3: Improved policy dialogue and participation of civil society and vulnerable groups in community initiatives to address poverty.
The activities under each of the three specific objectives build upon each other in order to achieve the overall objective reducing multidimensional poverty in the three regions of Lori, Shirak, and Tavush. The activities under the first specific objective are a series of poverty-focused research projects that will inform the development of the capacity building activities under the second objective. The second objective’s capacity building activities will subsequently serve as the basis for the intervention activities under the third objective, which will include social entrepreneurship projects and policy advocacy and development among target groups.
Expected results
1. Piloted Human Development Initiative’s (OPHI’s) Alkire-Foster (AF) method of Multidimensional Poverty Research in Armenia;
2. Budget analysis of programs focusing on vulnerable groups within Lori, Shirak, and Tavush;
3. Finalized review of the action including lessons learned;
4. Greater informed local and national government representatives, CSO representatives, and general public regarding poverty and inequality;
5. Targeted CSOs are capacitated to understand and analyze poverty, review and monitor public/community budgets and participate in budget formulation processes;
6. LSGs and local CSOs mobilizing the community around the idea of the project (with know-how on successfully directing resources to community development projects);
7. Designing and piloting of innovative actions and services (social initiatives) for tackling poverty and improving the quality of life of vulnerable groups offering region-specific solutions;
8. CSOs from the three marzes engaged in lobbying activities and policy dialogues focused on poverty and vulnerability mitigation.