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The World Bank and the Renewable Resources and Energy Efficiency Fund in Armenia signed a Grant Agreement in Yerevan on April 28, 2006. US$3.1m in subsidies will be provided by GPOBA to improve the access to gas and heating services for poor households in urban multi-apartment buildings outside of the capital city, Yerevan. This will be combined with total subsidy co-financing of about USD 3.5m from the Bank and the Armenian government.
A well attended press conference was held in Yerevan with several news agencies present to cover the Grant signing occasion. According to the ARKA news agency, The World Bank Country Manager, Mr. Roger Robinson and Ms. Tamar Babayan, the Director of the Renewable Resources and Energy Efficiency Fund (E2R2), signed the agreement. The Hayastani Hanrapetutyun newspaper reported that those eligible to receive the grants will be determined based on the main existing social protection program supporting low-income households in Armenia - the Poverty Family Benefit Program. The project will provide support to poor households for connection costs only and will not cover recurrent expenses, noted the Azg Daily. 168 Hours, another newspaper, highlighted that the Project will be carried over in parallel to the Urban Heating Project approved by the WB in July 2005. As a result of the program, about 85,000 people will have sufficient heating.
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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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In Armenia, a country with severe winters, many low-income households cannot afford the cost of connecting to gas networks or heating equipment. To help families benefit from clean and efficient gas-based heating, GPOBA and the World Bank funded a scheme that provided grants to eligible poor households for individual or local heating solutions. Disbursement of the funds was tied to the delivery of pre-agreed outputs, creating incentives for the service providers to ensure timely completion of the installation work and early delivery of the gas or heat supply.
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Gas-based heating offers a clean, efficient, low-cost heating solution for poor urban households in Armenia, a country with severe winters. But many low-income households cannot afford the cost of connecting to gas networks and heating facilities or the cost of heating equipment. To help these families benefit from gas-based heating, GPOBA and the World Bank are funding a scheme that provides grants to eligible poor households for individual heating solutions, based on a gas heater, or local heating solutions, based on a boiler.