In Armenia, the focus was on promoting energy-efficient action at household level in combination with sustainable budget management. The target group were poor households from rural areas. Especially in the cold season, poorer households rely upon their profits and savings from economic activities from the summer months and autumn harvests. Energy-efficient investments to reduce spending on energy and natural resources are an important factor in household management and environmental protection.

3,656 beneficiaries participated in the trainings in different rural regions. As a haptic tool, German Sparkassenstiftung developed a calculator which helps to analyze opportunities to increase a household’s energy efficiency.

In Azerbaijan, the trainings focused on financial education and business plan development for smallholder farmers and their families. 233 smallholder farmers from the Kurdamir region were trained in operational planning, financial management, and accounting to increase their businesses’ resilience to external shocks. These measures also opened new business opportunities, such as access to e-commerce.

51 farmers were coached and supported in development of business plans. All of them received loans from local banks. Kurdamir Center of Agrarian Services Agency participated in ToT, received training materials and is now able to conduct trainings for other farmers.

The project activities also included capacity building for government authorities (e.g. Ministry of Agriculture).

The ECOServe regional project aims to improve the preconditions for sustainable and biodiversity-friendly use of natural resources in the prevailing land-use systems in the South Caucasus. Special focus is on energy security for the rural population. The aim is to use sustainable approaches to create a balance between the usage and conservation of natural resources and thus to promote biodiversity and climate protection.

The regional project ECOserve of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is carried out on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and co-financed by the European Union.