Survey Among Residents of Multi- Apartment Buildings in Yerevan
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“De-risking and Scaling-Up Investment in Energy Efficient Building Retrofits” UNDP-GCF Project R E P O R T on the Survey among residents of multi- apartment buildings in Yerevan Astghik Mirzakhanyan National Expert on Social Vulnerability Assessment YEREVAN 2018 Contract: LTA-2018-005 Survey was conducted among the residents of 4 multi-apartment buildings (MABs) in Yerevan with the special focus on the impact of socio-economic status of household on its behavior related to the apartment heating and its readiness to cooperate with “De-risking and Scaling-up Investment in Energy Efficient Building Retrofits” Project, which will serve as a basis for accomplishing/adjusting the criteria for vulnerability assessment of households. The report was conducted in the framework of “De-risking and Scaling-up Investment in Energy Efficient Building Retrofits” Project, financed by the Green Climate Fund and being implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under coordination of the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Armenia. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the UNDP. The following report is the property of UNDP. Prior to applying, duplicating, transmitting and/or otherwise using the data, contained in the report, reference to the source is required and receiving UNDP official written consent is a must. © UNDP Armenia, 2018 2 Table of Content Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4 1. Survey Methodology: basic principles and steps........................................................................... 4 2. Outcomes, conclusions and suggestions ....................................................................................... 7 3. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 11 ANNEX 1.Number of beneficiary families residing in 24 multi-apartment buildings short-listed and presented by Yerevan Municipality ............................................................................................ 13 ANNEX 2. Social vulnerability characteristics of the residents of 10 potential buildings selected for household survey ............................................................................................................ 16 ANNEX 3. Q U E S T I O N N A I R E (for conducting survey with the purpose to adjust the social vulnerability criteria of household) .......................................................................................... 17 ANNEX 4. SUMMARY of results of the surveys carried out among families residing in three multi-apartment buildings of Yerevan ................................................................................................ 18 with the purpose to adjust social vulnerability assessment criteria .............................................. 18 ANNEX 5. The distribution of families registered in FBS, including the recipients of the both family and social allowances, by the administrative districts of Yerevan, as of 01.07.2018 ..... 20 ANNEX 6.SUMMARY of results of the survey of families residing in Yerevan Nor Nork administrative district, 3rd building at the 2nd lane of Gyulikevkhyan with the purpose to adjust social vulnerability assessment criteria ............................................................................................. 22 3 “De-Risking and Scaling-up Investment in Energy Efficient Building Retrofits” UNDP-GCF Project Introduction Based on the study of social vulnerability of population, the National Expert on Social Vulnerability Assessment proposed a system of main and additional criteria, as well as key indicators for the assessment of social vulnerability of family, which are described in the “Social Vulnerability Assessment of Population: Main Approaches, Criteria and System of Indicators” Report1. Particularly, as the main criteria for social vulnerability of the family are recommended the registration in the Family Benefit System (1st degree of vulnerability) and having within the family any member/members belonging to a socially vulnerable group (2nd degree of vulnerability). To justify the practical applicability of the aforementioned criteria, a pilot survey among at least 10 families should be carried out in accordance with the point 5 of the National Expert’s Terms of Reference. The pilot survey revealed the following two most applicable in practice criteria for assessment of social vulnerability of family, which are, at the same time, a well-known and widely spread among the country population: ❖ Families receiving family benefits; and ❖ Families having persons with disabilities, including the person disabled since childhood or a disabled child. Concerning the other proposed criteria for assessment of vulnerability of families, it’s worthy to mention that some additional - both official and non-official - sources of information (except of family itself) should be used to better justify the social status of the family, such as administrative databases of the various governmental bodies or peculiar information find out through inspectors of the condominiums and neighbors2. The methodology of pilot survey, basic outcomes, conclusions and recommendations are provided below. 1. Survey Methodology: basic principles and steps After having joint discussions with the program management and experts, as well as with Yerevan Municipality (hereinafter YM) and relevant specialists of the RA Ministry of Labor and 1 http://nature-ic.am/hy/publication/Social-Vulnerability-Assessment-of-Population/10558 2 It should be noted that some of the families, considering themselves as a low-income, have applied for a benefit, has been denied and, finally, is not aware whether they are registered in the family benefits system or not, moreover, they are fully unaware of their family insecurity unit. Both neighbors and condominium inspectors had great reservations about the vulnerability of some social groups, such as single pensioners (or only pensioners) and single-mothers. According to their observations, in some cases, the children are helping their pensioner parents, and the single mothers have «hidden» husbands. There will be some difficulties in dealing with the vulnerability of the "law-salary employed" and "unemployed" vulnerable groups, as the widespread phenomenon in the country are hidden employment, “black salary” and officially unregistered unemployment and so on. 4 “De-Risking and Scaling-up Investment in Energy Efficient Building Retrofits” UNDP-GCF Project Social Affairs (hereinafter MLSA), several key principles have been identified for organizing survey, which are the following: - Select the multi-apartment buildings for the family surveys from the list provided by the YM, taking into consideration that the implementation of UNDP and EU technical projects3 at the same buildings will lead to the synergy of results. - Exclude the administrative districts of Kentron and Arabkir of Yerevan from the list of buildings selected for surveys, since, according to the data provided by MLSA the number of families registered in the Family Benefits System (hereinafter FBS) and residing in multi-apartment buildings of the mentioned districts is relatively small4, hence the social impact of the Program could be lower. - Select from the list of buildings the ones inhabited by a maximum number of vulnerable families – both FBS beneficiaries and families with disabled member/members. - Give preference to the buildings that are multistoried (more than 5 floors) and more inhabited, i.e. have less so-called “closed doors” in order to increase the effectiveness in organizing the survey. - Also, include the building geographical location as a criterion of building selection, namely, the location in the north (relatively cold temperature), in the south (relatively warm temperature) and the middle sided (the mean temperature) districts of the capital city, as well as on the main street that further might indirectly serving as an "billboard" of the Program. - Taking into consideration the statistical fact, that the representation of vulnerable families in the selected buildings will be very disproportionate, as well as considering the cases of non-responses (rejections to be interviewed), select 10 potential multi- apartment buildings for the survey to organize it in a stepwise manner. - After completing the first stage survey, submit the summarized results to the Program Management Team (hereinafter PMT) to clarify the purpose and format of the second stage survey. The surveys were organized in sequence and/or in combination of the following steps: 3 The Yerevan Municipality with the EU technical assistance is implementing “EU4 Yerevan Solar Community” Program (hereinafter referred to as the "Arev" Program) aimed at the provision of electricity savings due to the use of solar energy and effective methods of lighting in multistoried buildings of the capital, consequently in the list provided by YM there are only multistoried, i.e. having 6 and more floors, buildings, 4 According to the MLSA database, among the residents of multi-apartment buildings of Yerevan as of 01.07.2018, in total, 4907 families registered in the FBS receive family allowance, of which only 177 (3.6%) residing in Arabkir administrative district and 200 (4.1%) in Kentron. It’s important to note