Armenia country strategic plan (2026 - 2030)

CSP approved at EB 1 2026 session

With a population of almost 3 million people, Armenia is a landlocked country facing multiple vulnerabilities and challenges, including geopolitical instability, socioeconomic issues and natural hazards. Armenia is expected to experience severe weather changes and shocks over the coming decades, with likely impacts on food availability and prices threatening the economy. Agricultural production and rural livelihoods are impeded by Armenia’s exposure to seismic shocks, flooding, hail, landslides and drought.

Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh that began in 2020 and escalated along the state border of Armenia and inside Armenia in 2021 and 2022 has had a detrimental impact on Armenia’s border regions, including on the livelihoods and resilience of border communities. In 2023 a refugee crisis displaced 115,000 ethnic Armenians, compounding existing vulnerabilities and stressing the state’s budget and systems with multiple ongoing socioeconomic and humanitarian effects for society, politics and the economy, further emphasizing the need for a peace agreement. The initialling of the Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan defines a framework for normalization and is a precursor to long-term development and stability.

Armenia is highly vulnerable to regional and international volatility. Even moderate food price inflation affects its economic capacity and purchasing power, particularly among food-insecure populations. This contributes to increasing food insecurity and worsening nutrition, especially in rural and remote areas where incomes are lower, livelihood opportunities are limited, and communities depend on subsistence agriculture. WFP’s 2024 food security and vulnerability assessment indicated that 40 percent of people could not afford the minimum expenditure basket, and almost 25 percent lived in poverty; 20 percent of people were food insecure, and even a moderate shock could increase that proportion to 75 percent.

Aligned with Armenia’s United Nations sustainable development cooperation framework for 2026–2030 and with the Government’s action plan for 2021–2026, WFP will sustainably phase out its operations in Armenia by 2030. Accordingly, under the country strategic plan for 2026–2030 WFP will focus on systematically handing over tools, models and systems to the Government, aiming to achieve two integrated outcomes.

➢ Outcome 1: Crisis-affected people in Armenia are better able to meet their basic food and nutrition needs before, during and in the aftermath of crises.

Complementing national response efforts, work under this outcome will enable WFP to strengthen the Government’s and national partners’ capacities for emergency preparedness and to rapidly support crisis-affected people, including refugees and host communities, seeking to meet their basic food and nutrition needs before, during and in the aftermath of crises. WFP will also support the Government in preparing to respond to conflict-related shocks and natural disasters, including seismic-related events, through developing and handing over early warning systems, working to strengthen preparedness capacity, contingency planning and public awareness at the national and community levels.

➢ Outcome 2: The Government of Armenia has enhanced systems, programmes and capacities to strengthen food security and reduce humanitarian needs by 2030.
 

Central to WFP’s strategic shift from implementer to enabler, this outcome lays the foundation for WFP’s handover strategy. WFP will support the Government as it gradually assumes full ownership of urban school-based programming in Yerevan, manages its shock-responsive social protection system and ensures that models, practices and tools that render the food system more resilient are institutionalized to safeguard food security and reduce humanitarian needs.
 

This country strategic plan reaffirms WFP’s commitment to advancing engagement with the Government of Armenia by moving towards a more technical advisory role over the course of the plan and responsibly phasing out its operations in Armenia by 2030.