After Karabakh’s Exodus: Can Armenia turn crisis into renewal?

In September 2023, more than 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh poured across the border in a matter of days — one of the fastest mass displacements Europe has seen in years. They arrived not as refugees in the legal sense, but as forcibly displaced people with temporary protection: families who lost homes overnight and had to rebuild from scratch in a country already wrestling with unemployment and a shrinking population.

The emergency phase moved quickly — shelter, stipends, school placements. The harder question is the long game. Can Armenia turn this shock into a strategy that helps both the displaced and the state? Economist and reform advisor Tigran Jrbashyan argues that’s exactly the frame required:

“This is not just about assistance. It’s about integrating refugee-like policy into Armenia’s broader demographic and economic development agenda.”

Armenia’s labor market was tight long before the exodus. Jrbashyan estimates the number of employed people fell by 284,000 over the last two decades, with another 100,000 at risk. About 185,000 are “employed but poor,” mostly in agriculture, and nearly 340,000 people count as under-utilized — neither working nor actively looking.

Official data tell a similar story: unemployment ~12.4% in 2023, down slightly from 13.5% a year earlier, yet agriculture still makes up well over half of jobs — far above peers. The World Bank says nearly two in five working-age Armenians are outside the labor force. As Jrbashyan puts it:

“We don’t have a shortage of people, we have a shortage of opportunities.”

The mismatch between what schools produce and what employers need is the hidden conflict line.

Opportunity is lopsided. Yerevan concentrates capital, services, and decent pay; the regions drain out. Jrbashyan’s fix: decentralize. Build industrial zones around regional cities to anchor investment, create non-farm jobs, and give displaced families a reason to settle outside the capital. Keep funneling everything to Yerevan, he warns, and you guarantee empty provinces and dead-end choices — especially for families used to rural life.

Temporary lodging was essential, but the long-term housing plan is still patchy. Comparative lessons matter. Abkhazia’s large, segregated complexes for the displaced hardened social lines. Armenia should avoid that trap with mixed housing — refugee-like and local families side-by-side, sharing schools and services.

Money is starting to move. The Netherlands pledged €14 million via the Global Concessional Financing Facility to expand affordable housing for the displaced. Yet Armenia’s own housing program has struggled to take off: by July, about 1,900 certificates had been issued for roughly 25,000 eligible families, with only 300–400 actually completed purchases — hampered by slow citizenship processing and a thin housing market. As of Aug. 22, fewer than 11,000 displaced people had received Armenian citizenship — well below those who have left Armenia and not returned. In mid-2025, the number of non-returnees climbed by roughly 5,000, coinciding with cuts to rental assistance (from AMD 50,000 to AMD 30,000, with stricter eligibility), sparking protests and a late-stage pivot to tighter, vulnerability-focused aid.

Crowded classrooms in Yerevan, under-enrolled and under-funded schools in the regions — that’s the current map. Follow New Zealand and Australia’s playbook: regional school specializations tied to local economies (STEM, vocational trades, cultural and heritage sectors). Make education a magnet for both displaced and local youth, and you start closing the skills gap that keeps growth stuck in first gear.

Language is another quiet barrier. Older generations from Karabakh can struggle with standardized Armenian in classrooms and offices. The fix isn’t exotic: language and civic integration courses — a European standard — scaled for Armenia’s context so access to jobs and services isn’t lost in translation.

Armenia’s Demographic Strategy 2024–2040 aims to grow human capital, improve health, and support families while countering low fertility and youth out-migration. If refugee-like policy is plugged into that strategy — rather than treated as a standalone relief file — displacement can become a population stabilizer and a spur to regional growth.

The conflict’s legal-political ripples continue. In Washington, a House Foreign Affairs amendment led by Rep. Gabe Amo pushes for prisoner releases, safe return conditions, and protection of cultural sites. In Yerevan, Samvel Shahramanyan — Karabakh’s last president — has sued over textbook language describing his 2023 decree dissolving the republic, a move he now frames as coerced and legally void. In Baku, high-profile trials of former Karabakh leaders roll on with sweeping charges. None of this is background noise: it shapes whether return is even thinkable, how memory is written, and how long “temporary” protection lasts.

There’s no need to reinvent the policy wheel.

• Georgia: an IDP law linking housing, property issues, and integration.
• Colombia: Law 387 (1997) — a full-stack framework for registration, housing, and durable solutions.
• Uganda: a rights-first IDP policy (2004) that lets displaced people work and access land, boosting self-reliance.

The common thread: clear laws, capable institutions, and sustainable finance.

Five practical moves

1. Stand up regional industrial zones with one-stop investor services and local hiring targets.
2. Scale mixed-tenure housing (rent-to-own, vouchers, municipal land swaps), using Dutch and multilateral financing to crowd in developers.
3. Create regional education hubs (STEM + vocational) tied to nearby employers; fund buses, dorms, and teacher incentives.
4. Launch language & civic programs with fast credentials employers recognize.
5. Wire it into the 2040 demographic plan with performance metrics (regional employment, school completion, home purchases, firm formation).

Displacement doesn’t have to calcify into dependency. Armenia’s chronic problems — thin job creation, overreliance on agriculture, uneven schools, housing gaps, and language barriers — hit locals and the displaced alike. Fix them together and you don’t just manage a crisis; you reshape the growth model. As Jrbashyan put it: make the right choices now, and refugee-like policy becomes part of Armenia’s long-term strategy — not just a stopgap after a war.