Armenia—Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Mountainous Armenia (SIGMA)

The Sustainable and Inclusive Growth in Mountainous Armenia (SIGMA) project aims to reduce poverty and inequality in the mountainous regions of Armenia by improving sustainable employment. Sigma has two primary outcomes:

• Help farmers, agribusiness, and tourism businesses increase revenues and employ more people.
• Strengthen value chains of select industries to boost sustainable economic growth.

SIGMA takes a market systems development approach to bolster growth—primarily in the agricultural sector—in the poor rural regions of Armenia. Working with local and international experts in agricultural productivity, value chains, and political economy analysis, SIGMA will facilitate grant partnerships that help local markets grow.

The project takes a research-based, strategic approach to identify how market conditions and current geopolitics can enhance economic productivity in targeted areas. DAI partners with businesses to help strengthen their operations and growth strategies, helping business owners create more jobs and become more profitable.

SIGMA is partnering with Beekeeping Forge in Armenia to support and promote beekeepers across the country. Photo courtesy: SIGMA.

Sample Activities

• Conduct all prior research and partnership identification to focus on catalyzing the partnerships and managing the subsequent activities.
• Support selected service providers to act as ‘catalysts’ across the agriculture and tourism industries to spread best practice and build synergies.
• Offer training to farmers focusing on climate adaptation and mitigation strategies within the agricultural sector, including optimized water usage, advanced cultivation techniques, organic production methods, and post-harvest management.
• Advance gender and inclusion through tailored capacity-building and gender-responsive training to enhance productivity, facilitate financial connections, align services with women’s unique needs, and promote women-friendly working environments to support employment and retention.
• Facilitate dialogue with policymakers through conducting workshops, seminars, and commissioning research aimed at identifying policy barriers that are hindering the agriculture and tourism sectors.
• Promote applying digital and innovative solutions to enhance efficiency and create new opportunities in the agriculture and tourism sectors.

Select Results

• Held the Sevan Agritech Summit, which served as a vital platform for building new synergies and strengthening the existing partnerships with key stakeholders in Armenia’s agritech and agriculture sectors, including the Ministry of Economy, Ministry of High-Tech Industry, sector-specific projects and organizations, and seasoned agritech experts. The successes of this event mean it is now poised to become a significant annual gathering, shaping the future of agriculture in Armenia.
• Identified successful agritech companies with effective solutions to key challenges in Armenia’s agriculture sector and offered them opportunities to develop their innovations further.
• Deepened partnership with a leading Armenian agritech company specializing in smart spraying technologies. This collaboration can lead to successful projects in SIGMA-targeted regions, improving smallholder farmers’ access to agritech solutions and increasing cost-effectiveness and time efficiency.