Armenia

Armenia Country Gender Assessment223. In environmental projects, women can be considered an entry point for behavioralchange concerning waste disposal. Women are not only often open to the idea of engagingin “green” practices themselves; they also play an important role in educating childrenabout protecting the environment, both in the home and the community. For example,the NGO Green Lane has an environmental and waste management educational projectin Tavush Marzin which teachers learn about composting, waste reuse, and recycling, andpass this knowledge to their students. 294 Women in Gyumri and Berd began an initiativeto create reusable shopping bags and promote them with local citizens and businesses.Respondents in Gyumri stated that they are trying to develop a culture of reuse andrecycling, but, so far, business owners have not committed or shown interest in giving upthe use of plastic bags.C. Gender Issues Related to Transport224. Armenia is a mountainous country in which about one-third of the populationlives in rural areas. The country inherited its road and transport infrastructure from theSoviet period, and much of it is in need of rehabilitation. Poor roads make it difficult forpeople to travel between towns, especially in the winter. Cross-border travel and trade arecomplicated by the fact that of its four international borders, the two longest (with Turkeyand Azerbaijan) are closed. The failure to resolve border disputes means that north–southtransport routes are especially vital.225. ADB transport projects prioritize modernizing Armenia’s internal and externaltransport links by investing in the road network to link towns to each other and to theNorth–South Road Corridor (from the border with Georgia to the border with Iran, andconnecting routes to Yerevan). In addition, ADB’s Sustainable Urban DevelopmentInvestment Program, which concerns highways and transport in the capital, includes agender action plan that focuses on ensuring that women’s needs and priorities will beconsidered in the urban transport reorganization scheme and in land acquisition, andthat capacity development will be undertaken to increase coordination on gender anddevelopment (GAD) among various stakeholders in Yerevan’s transport sector. It isimportant that improvements to urban transport infrastructure, especially public transportin Yerevan, increase the access of women and girls to schools, health centers, employment,and markets, and provide other livelihood opportunities. Other expected outcomes fromADB projects include improved road safety and an increase in both freight and passengertraffic.226. Limited quantitative and qualitative sex-disaggregated data. Very little concreteinformation is available on the gender-related patterns of road use and travel in Armenia,such as the number of male and female road users, public transport use disaggregatedby sex, or accessibility of urban transport for women and men with regard to cost andtimetables, and including such groups as single parents, the elderly, PWDs, and rural users.Likewise, sex-disaggregated data on the number of people employed in specific transportjobs, which could be used for project planning, are not collected. Qualitative information294 Green Lane. Environment Projects. http://greenlane.am/projects/environment/66