Improving food security and nutrition through cash+ in Armenia

FAO

Improving food security and nutrition through cash+ in Armenia

Combining cash transfers, productive assets and inputs distribution with agricultural and nutrition trainings for vulnerable rural households in Lori and Shirak regions

Year of publication 2024

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 12 p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) Armenia is a landlocked, upper-middle-income country with a population of three million people and a net importer of food. It is vulnerable to natural hazards, including floods and drought, which negatively impact the country's food security and nutrition, together with external shocks like global food price fluctuations. This promising practice documents an integrated nutrition-sensitive cash+ approach piloted by FAO in the Gyulagarak community in the Lori region, and in the Marmashen community in the Shirak region. The intervention was part of the project “Developing Capacity for Strengthening Food Security and Nutrition in Selected Countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia,” which started in 2016 and ended in 2021. The objective of this intervention was to support the economic inclusion of poor rural households and improve their food security and nutrition. To do so, the intervention leveraged the national social protection system by targeting beneficiaries of the government-run family benefits scheme. FAO complemented the cash transfers provided by the government programme with packages of agricultural inputs and training on agriculture, nutrition and financial literacy. This promising practice offers an example of the effectiveness of cash+ interventions in strengthening resilience, nutrition and food security. The main innovative element of this pilot was in fact the combination of social assistance and productive assistance for small-scale agriculture. The results offer a solid evidence base to advocate in Armenia and elsewhere for combining national social protection programmes with productive inputs for small-scale food producers.

Language English

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