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Good practice Imported

City Experiment Fund in Stepanavan, Armenia — A Multi-Cycle UNDP Urban-Experimentation Platform

Armenia · Stepanavan · See the Armenia profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 39% 71/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

UNDP's City Experiment Fund has used Stepanavan, Armenia as a recurring test site since 2021 for systems-thinking urban pilots. An independently documented 2021 co-creation cycle logged 9 large-scale and 8 new-service initiatives; a 2025 circular-economy pilot reached 100 househo

9 large-scale initiatives, 8 new services, 5 regulation mechanisms count
Initiatives, services and regulations generated (2021 cycle) (2021)
100 households
Households reached (2025 circular-economy pilot) (2025)
~2 tonnes
Sorted waste collected (2025, early pilot operation)
City Experiment Fund in Stepanavan, Armenia — A Multi-Cycle UNDP Urban-Experimentation Platform

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
UNDP Europe and Central Asia (Slovak Transformation Fund), with Agirre Lehendakaria Center
Period
2021–present (multiple cycles; current phase 2025–2028)
Keywords
urban innovation, systems thinking, circular economy, municipal governance, youth talent attraction

Context

The City Experiment Fund (CEF) is a UNDP programme, funded by the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic under the Slovak Transformation Fund, that has worked with cities across Europe and Central Asia since 2021 to test systems-thinking approaches to urban problems. Stepanavan, a town of around 12,000 people in Armenia's Lori Province, has been one of its recurring case-study cities across at least two programme cycles.

Results

The 2021 cycle's 'deep listening' and co-creation process, independently documented by the Agirre Lehendakaria Center, produced 9 large-scale initiatives, 8 new public services, 5 new regulation mechanisms, 2 small/mid-scale initiatives and 2 community actions. In the 2025 circular-economy pilot, UNDP reports reusable waste-sorting bags distributed to 100 households, 30 public sorting bins installed, and roughly two tonnes of sorted waste collected in early operation.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
UNDP Europe and Central Asia (Slovak Transformation Fund), Agirre Lehendakaria Center, Stepanavan municipal administration

Conditions for success

  • 'deep listening' phase building stakeholder personas before co-design
  • identical CEF methodology run in parallel across 10 cities in 5 countries

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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