Filling the Heating Gap for Armenia’s Urban Poor

With heating now available in their homes, 8,000 poor urban households in Armenia have one less worry during the country’s harsh winters and the lingering economic crisis that has hit them the hardest. Armine Grigoryian, Public Information Assistant at the World Bank's Yerevan office, shares the story.

"Many poor families in Armenia face the daily struggle to heat their households given the high costs of connecting to gas networks or buying expensive heating equipment that can cost around US$550, or about two months of income. Even with the small monthly stipend that poor households receive under the Government's Poverty Family Benefit Program (PFBP), many families often go cold in the harsh Armenian winters.

To help solve this problem, the World Bank and the Global Partnership on Output Based Aid (GPOBA) partnered to fund a program within the scope of the Urban Heating Project that provided targeted capital grants to thousands of families for connecting their apartments to the gas network and installing a gas heater."

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